Surreal multimedia PHOBOPHILIA takes audiences on a bizarre journey (photo by Julio Pantoja)
HERE Arts Center
145 Sixth Ave. at Dominick St.
Through January 10, $20
212-352-3101
www.here.org
www.undertheradarfestival.com
Part of the Under the Radar Festival, 2boys.tv’s PHOBOPHILIA is a surreal journey into fear and darkness, terror and temptation. After gathering in HERE’S lobby, the two dozen audience members are led back outside in small groups and taken through a different entrance, where they must check their coats and blindfold themselves before heading into a secret location. Once there, the blindfolds are removed, and they are seated in specific, extremely low metal folding chairs while a suited man with a black bag over his head balances precariously on a trunk, an interrogation light on the floor behind him. Eventually the man reveals himself, opens the trunk, and then the real fun begins, a multimedia performance piece that includes sculptural video imagery, song and dance, action sequences, and plenty of mystery. Inspired by the work of Jean Cocteau, creators Stephen Lawson and Aaron Pollard fill PHOBOPHILIA with haunting elements of magic and intentional confusion, keeping the audience off balance as they bend and twist the lines between art and artifice, audience and actor, fiction and reality, witness and voyeur, torture and pleasure. The forty-five-minute piece continues through the weekend, with performances scheduled for 5:00, 6:00, 7:00, and 10:00 on January 8, 1:00, 5:00, 6:00, and 7:00 on January 9, and 6:00 and 7:00 on January 10.