Celebrating the vitality of L.A.’s next-generation artists making work for the stage, REDCAT's Studio Series offers adventurous audiences six intriguing new works and works-in-progress in dance, theater, music and multimedia performance. This edition of Studio was curated with guest curators Jesus Reyes and Melanie Rios Glaser, and features works by Mecca Vazie Andrews/MOVEMENT movement, Milka Djordjevich, Federico Llach/Now Hear Ensemble, Alan Nakagawa, Justin Streichman and Wilderness.

MECCA VAZIE ANDREWS / MOVEMENT MOVEMENT: SANDRA DEE DE E

In an empathetic response to recent tragedies in the U.S., choreographer and performer Mecca Vazie Andrews begins with powerful spoken poetry drawn from her experiences teaching schools. Then, she and her company of dancers, the MOVEMENT movement, give physical expression to the volatile impulses of youth and invoke the potential for positive release and transformation.

MILKA DJORDJEVICH: KINETIC MAKEOVER

Dancer/choreographer Milka Djordjevich's new solo dance is an act of self-directed persistence built of perpetual actions that expose the thresholds of the body and the layers of information it can contain. Serving as her own puppeteer, she isolates her body's components as distinct objects that can be “made over,” transformed into pieces of architecture, sensory receptors or independent beings.

FEDERICO LLACH / NOW HEAR ENSEMBLE: 11 POINTS

Federico Llach's score propels his musicians into a game of risk vs. caution generated by an impossible task—performing to the tempo of a “metronome” create by a live ping-pong match. As the five members of the Now Hear Ensemble attempt to anticipate the unpredictable rhythm of a competitive sport they elicit beautifully suspenseful lurches and attune the listener to the sound of human imperfection.

ALAN NAKAGAWA: ORGAN OF CORTI

American scientist Royal Rife (1888–1971) claimed to have discovered frequencies that could destroy pathogens, but sound/video collagist Alan Nakagawa uses Rife's frequencies as a ready-made source for microtonal chords. Using a variety of inventive sources, Nakagawa blends visceral poly-rhythmic waves and lush textures with moving imagery that pertains to dream states and bodily structures.

JUSTIN STREICHMAN: THE CONDUIT

Taking inspiration from iconic performances and new age mysticism, Justin Streichman inquires into the state of the performer and the radiant quality of charismatic presence. Extracting, distilling and concealing sources as varied as Carlos Castaneda, Andy Kaufman, Nina Simone and Gena Rowlands, Streichman strives to manipulate and make visible the ineffable energetic force that commands attention.

WILDERNESS: LEAVES OF GRASS

This physical theater duet examines the creation, maintenance and loss of identity that result from enduring human relationships. Using text and movement, performers Chris Polick and Annie Saunders enact the subtle and subconscious mirroring that reformulates the psyche, while undergoing line-blurring physical transformations that erase the external markers of the self.