Experimental Los Angeles performing artists offer adventurous new works and works-in-progress in this ongoing series. The Summer 2012 edition of Studio was curated with guest curators Laurel Kishi and Jesus Reyes, and features works by Jon David Casey, Jamie Peterson/The Paper Industry, Ladies and Gentlemen, Pam Gonzales Dance, Waewdao Sirisook and Storytelling Band.

JON DAVID CASEY: ACCUMULATOR

Historical facts from the life and work of controversial psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich serve as potent metaphors in Accumulator. Solo theater artist Jon David Casey, who wrote and directed the work, performs with disquieting force as he delves into sexual obsession and the isolating effects of addiction.  

PAM GONZALES DANCE: SPATIAL CORPOREAL POETIC

Choreographer Pam Gonzales crafts surprising movement vocabulary with a keen eye for spatial composition, and her dancing shifts with sudden, rhythmic interruptions of time. This new solo unfolds as a visceral writing exercise, using both filmic and stage space as a playground for poetics.    

JAMIE PETERSON/THE PAPER INDUSTRY: COMING OUT PARTY (DUTY! SUBLIME)

Meta-monologist Jamie Peterson's new work is an improvisational high-wire act that masterfully blends fragments of text, live-looped sound and video. Exploring notions of trust, authenticity and a transplant's first impressions of his new home, this multimedia storyteller places familiar feelings in an unfamiliar terrain.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: SECOND NATURE

Using imagery and sound sourced from the expansive 2006 film Manufactured Landscapes in a dynamic audio-visual improvisation, the duo of Matt Broach and Maxwell Gualtieri meld analog and digital music with composed visual landscapes that expand on video as an instrument of performance.

WAEWDAO SIRISOOK: LANNA DREAM

Using both articulate dancing and subversive humor, choreographer Waewdao Sirisook's solo takes hold of the cultural traditions of Northern Thailand's Lanna people to explore the campy commodification of traditional cultures and the struggle between exotification, preservation, self-knowledge and celebration.  

STORYTELLING BAND: "MUSIC" BY RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Ralph Waldo Emerson's poem is given a musical interpretation by this collective of seven interdisciplinary storytellers. Blending vocals, violin, charango, trumpet, guitar and percussion with fluid video-scapes, the ensemble's  immersive performance gently conjures its transcendental spirit.