 |
|||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|||||||||||
Dodeska Performance Ensemble integrates theater, sound, music and technology to create innovative performance events designed to activate the spectator. Dodeska takes its name from Akira Kurosawa's 1970 film, Dodeskaden , in which Rokkuchan, a mentally handicapped boy, propels an imaginary trolley car through a slum shouting his made up onomatopoeic word for the sound the trolley makes: "Dodeskaden! Dodeskaden!" His glorious colorful trains become as real as their grim surroundings, invoked into full being through his strange and raptured performance. Dodeskaden! Dodeskaden! The Ensemble
Robert Quillen Camp*
Alec Duffy
Ryan Eggensperger*
David Frank
Alexis Poledouris*
Lucy Smith
* denotes Co-Artistic Director
The Group
THE GROUP is an enacted weekly workshop for purifying the spirit, connecting with the group soul, and eliminating secret enemies to become happier, healthier, richer, and better. Based on our similarly titled 2008 San Francisco show THE GROUP ("Hilarious" - SF Examiner, "Inspired writing, sharp humor, simple yet slick production" - SF Bay Guardian), the new version is even harder to explain. Our power circle will save your f***ing life.
Created and performed by Dodeska Performance Ensemble. Reviews of the 2008 San Francisco production at Climate Theater can be found on our press page.
Selected Works
Field Trip (2003-2007)
Field Trip is a series of transportation-themed performance operas: Very Large People (airplane), Timetable (bus), Subway Doctor Frankenstein (subway), and Lift (elevator). Performed at Bowery Poetry Club (2003), Little Theatre at Tonic (2003), Dixon Place (2004), ACA Galleries (2006). The text of Timetable is published in issue 3 of Factorial. The full audio of Lift is here: [mp3: Lift - full - 9:36]
Days of Rage (2004)
An audio piece that combines headphones, speakers, and live piano, Days of Rage follows several would-be activists in present day New York as they try to orchestrate a contemporary equivalent to the Weatherman's 1969 "Days of Rage" Chicago riot. Strange and surreal, the narrative explores political alienation, the ethics of violence, and the distance between the sociopolitical climates of the sixties and today. Site-specific NYC apartment performance 2004, Performed at Elastic Arts (Chicago) 2005, Temple University 2005, The Public Square at the Illinois Humanities Council / Third Coast International Audio Festival (Chicago) 2005.[mp3 excerpt: Scene 13: In the Opium Den - 2:27]
The Oprichniki (2004)
A site-specific performance inspired by the life and work of Sergei Eisenstein that combines an audio world experienced through headphones with live, silent actors. The Oprichniki is set in a loft in a dark and magical Brooklyn, where a filmmaker's activities are attracting increasing attention from the half-human "Oprichniki,"a government organization named after Ivan the Terrible's secret police. Performed at Octopus Bushwick, 2004
He Said It (2005)
Gertrude Stein's short play, arranged for four voices, a tea kettle, and a broken clavichord. Performed at the Ontological-Hysteric (2005).[mp3 - full - 14:19]
Reviews
The Group
"The Group is one of those parodies that's so good, you almost don't know it's a fake... Ryan Eggensperger plays the Leader to eerie perfection, performing a spot-on script by Robert Quillen Camp, who personally must have been exposed to The Secret to write lines this good..."
- Leslie Katz, SF Examiner
"The Group offers communion through buoyantly in-your-face comedy in a droll send-up of EST-like self-actualization programs. Such material is, of course, kept evergreen by the transmigration of the form into more recent incarnations like The Secret or The Landmark Forum. Nevertheless, a spoof of the subject might easily have seemed stale but for the inspired writing, sharp humor, and simple yet slick production gracefully managed by creator Robert Quillen Camp and the Dodeska Performance Ensemble. The show features a rich aural environment and a dexterous, committed performance by Ryan Eggensperger as your grinning, self-confidence-oozing and darkly monomaniacal group leader."
- Robert Avila, SF Bay Guardian
"One of the cleverest aspects of the witty, 60-minute Dodeska Performance Ensemble piece is not taking itself too seriously while still making stinging observations about America's obsession with the self-help movement. It nails our insatiable appetite to consume enlightenment as if it were Skittles - sugary, cheap, bite-size and disposable. Gimme, gimme."
- Karen DiSouza, San Jose Mercury News
"The piece is a tribute to understatement and absurdity, as the soothing voices coming through the headphones calmly lead us into the program with such confidence and reassurance that in a very short time, even something as absurd as a talking giraffe makes sense... it promotes a sense of delight through its unflappable goofiness and Eggensperger's increasingly silly leadership through the various aspects of teaching how the program works...."
- Pat Craig, Contra Costa Times
Features & Previews
Group Think - Dodeska Performance Ensemble takes a page from the self-empowerment playbook - East Bay Express, June 4, 2008
All Together Now - SF Weekly, May 28, 2008
The Group - Flavorpill, May 29, 2008
Postal
c/o The Constant Theater Foundation365 West End Ave 7C
New York, NY 10024 You can also join our Facebook group.
To add yourself to our mailing list, send an email to: list (AT) dodeska (DOT) com with subject line SUBSCRIBE.
Privacy
We will not give out your information to anyone, under any circumstances.