Theatre Gigante’s ‘Night at the Movies’

First separately, then together in Milwaukee DanceTheatre, and now as married co-directors of Theatre Gigante, choreographer/dancer Isabelle Kralj andwriter/performer Mark Anderson have been invaluable pioneers in forging aunique hybrid of dance and theater in Milwaukee. Their work is alwaysintellectually and sensually engaging and, while playful and witty, a seriousexperiment with the variables of live performance. They’ve worked with some of Milwaukee’s mostsignificant performing artists (and also with me, many times in years past), aswell as distinguished guests from out of town. They’re doing all of that intheir first show this season, called “A Night at the Movies.” As in the goldenage of moviegoing, it includes a feature and a short.

The feature is 7(x1) Samurai, a one-man, mask-mime-dance-theater adaptation of Kurosawa’sgreat film Seven Samurai, created andperformed by Anderson’s college friend David Gaines. Gaines went on to study physicaltheater techniques at the prestigious Ecole Jacques Lecoqin Paris, then formed a company in London called Moving PictureMime Show that toured Europe for 10 years, until Lecoq invited him to join hisfaculty and Gaines became professor of mask and movement at the famous Parisschool. He returned to the States to teach in the Professional Actor TrainingProgram at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and then joined the BigApple Circus Clown Care Unit based in D.C., where he now lives.

Anderson and Gaines reconnected at their collegereunion and, at Kralj’s instigation, began to dream and plan on the spot. So,while Gaines introduces his work to Milwaukee,the three will start on a new show for future presentation here. Judging fromvideo clips, Gaines’ technique is very advanced and the piece is very funny.According to Anderson,you need not know the movie in advance; you’ll see it all in his performance.

The short is Malcolm’s Tulip’s …and…Action! Tulip is a dancer-clown-theater artist who alsostudied at Lecoq, and now teachestheater at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. A former guest of Gigante, hewrote this 30-minute piece following a week of improvisations and interviewswith the performers, who include, along with Kralj and Anderson, my longtimepartner in Theatre X, John Kishline.

Inspired by Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests, it’s a kaleidoscopic, nonlinear look into thevulnerable psyches of three actors waiting to audition for a movie, thinking,talking and rehearsing lines. According to Kralj, Tulip took many linesverbatim from the interviews, so the performers have to reconnect with thesources of their own words.

“A Night at the Movies” will play at theOff-Broadway Theatre, 342 N. Water St., 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, Nov. 5-7.