Experimental Los Angeles performing artists offer adventurous new works and works-in-progress in this ongoing series. This edition of Studio was curated with guest curators Laurel Kishi and Melanie Rios Glaser, and features works by Alexx Makes Dances; Brian Getnick; Brzytwa, Lewis & Robinson; Lux Aeterna Dance Company; Pappas and Dancers; and Alexander Vassos.

ALEXX MAKES DANCES: THIS DANCE IS STOLEN
Choreographer Alexandra Shilling fashions a rock-and-roll love letter to David Byrne as two women appropriate movement from his iconic performance in Jonathan Demme’s Stop Making Sense. Experimenting with forms of accumulation and de-accumulation, their “stolen” dance confronts the celebrated role of the frontman.

BRIAN GETNICK: MEMORIES: THE MEMORIES THEMSELVES
Animating the dissembled parts of a 14-foot puppet from within, Brian Getnick and his collaborators give rise to singing that unifies the disparate parts of a tragic whole. As this sculptural body seeks integration, it forms a cohesive band and, at the same time, offers a form of resistance to monolithic notions of identity.

BRZYTWA, LEWIS & ROBINSON: WADE IN THE WATER
The experimental music trio of Maryclare Brzytwa, James Brandon Lewis and Kevin Robinson transposes African American spirituals through the diverse lenses of their varied musical backgrounds. Rhythmic grooves and microtonal clashing emerge from improvisational approaches rooted in jazz, classical and electronic music as well as spontaneous composition and call and response.

LUX AETERNA DANCE COMPANY: EPONYM
Through a feat-filled blend of hyperkinetic hip-hop, breaking and acrobatics, Jacob “Kujo” Lyons and his Lux Aeterna Dance Company craft a movement language capable of taking flight. The company’s b-boys and b-girls double as aerialists in a potent and poetic combination of athletic dance and contemporary circus theater.

PAPPAS AND DANCERS: A DANCE CONCERNING ITSELF WITH HISTORY AND MEMORY
A playful investigation of the invented versus the remembered, Rebecca Pappas’ new dance duet takes on an increasingly unstable subject. Inspired by ideas of fire and destruction, false provenances and the fallibility of both the body and mind, two dancers navigate an uncertain place in time to create a grand ritual of forgetting.  

ALEXANDER VASSOS: THE HOUSE IS OPEN
Surreal soundscapes are pitted against the operatic mold in this electro-acoustic opera that centers on Charley, a young boy who has spent most of his life asleep. Experimenting with several musical cultural tradions, an eight-piece ensemble and six vocalists convey a dream-filled narrative through music, arias, tableaux and spoken text.