Big Dance Theater reinvents Varda classic onstage in multimedia production
New York Live Arts
219 West 19th St. between Seventh & Eighth Aves.
May 16-19, $15-$30, 7:30
212-691-6500
www.newyorklivearts.org
www.bigdancetheater.org
Agnès Varda’s 1961 Nouvelle Vague classic, Cléo from 5 to 7, is as much about filmmaking as it is about its subject, a small-time chanteuse wandering the streets of Paris as she fearfully awaits the results of a biopsy. New York-based Big Dance Theater, under the artistic direction of husband-and-wife team Annie-B Parson and Paul Lazar, reinvents the seminal real-time film onstage in the vastly entertaining Comme Toujours Here I Stand. Turning the process itself into the narrative, BDT creates a multimedia mix of dance, music, and video centered around the making of the film, with a diva star playing the diva star. Parson and Lazar, who based the production on Varda’s screenplay — they didn’t watch the movie itself until things were well under way — brilliantly incorporate a wonderful set featuring three vertical multipurpose screens and a rolling staircase, along with original songs by Robyn Hitchcock. Evoking New Wave master Jean-Luc Godard, much of the action takes place in between shots, “off camera,” involving the cast and crew, focusing on Cléo’s ever-more-frustrated costars, one of whom is in a continuing phone drama with her boyfriend. Fans of the film won’t be disappointed — BDT includes all the familiar scenes, from visits to a fortune-teller and a hat shop to a musical interlude with Cléo’s pianist and a walk in the park with a poetic soldier. Refreshingly, Comme Toujours Here I Stand, which was first presented at the Kitchen in October 2009 and will now be performed May 16-19 at New York Live Arts, also maintains Varda’s focus on women’s experience and interaction with each other. (There will be a preshow talk on May 16 with Brian Rogers and a postshow talk May 18 with Cathy Edwards.)