Bandage A Knife: Performance Works NW's Fall Offering Inspired by Noir

My best guess is that most Japanese yakuza-themed B movies from the '60s typically don't inspire today's dance performances, but when Seth Nehil, sound and performance artist, stumbled across Seijun Suzuki's Branded to Kill, he immediately thought its "quirky, whimsical qualities" might be interesting, too, to Linda Austin, dancer/choreographer. They got together to view the film that was probably more than once deemed "incomprehensible"; and both were intrigued by its qualities of "weirdness... over-the-top grotesqueness" and its "struggle for dominance" theme. They felt compelled to collaborate on what is now known to them—and will be known to the rest of us come early November—as Bandage a Knife. The work is not a literal translation of the film by any stretch (again, such an unlikely catalyst for a performance rooted in dance), but channels "half remembered, or misremembered images as points of departure" for Austin and Nehil's presentation of movement, sound, and vision.

The performance is unlike anything the director duo has ever been involved with before—as artists, performers, or even conceptors. As soon as they put their artist-collaborator hats on "too many ideas began to flow." Now with 25 sections layering dance, video, and sound, the piece has enabled Austin, artistic director and co-founder of Performance Works Northwest who spent 20 years enmeshed in New York's performing arts scene, to employ a "true style of collaboration. It's integrated, conceptually, and, unusually, the first time that someone approached me to work together in this manner. It's great to have someone talking through the piece as it's being created, rather than going at it independently." It seems to be a good intersection between two minds.

The two have clearly influenced one another throughout the creative process, and Nehil notes that he enjoys finding solutions to building complex pieces with a co-conspirator. The level of detail and complexity of Bandage is enormous, both explain, and could certainly take on a life of its own if not corralled. The two mused over objects, materials, and ideas that sparked even more. Many of those concepts have emerged throughout the rehearsals, adding yet another layer of complexity: the constantly evolving "script."

Some snippets of dialog have made their way into the piece, too, though during initial brainstorming sessions they thought that they'd plop in real scenes from the movie, perhaps even whole sections of dialogue. "In a small instance, that's happened."

The piece—with six dancers, including Austin, have been working together for some time, but "haven't started running it as a piece yet. Nothing's been done in order, really, so it's been a massive feed of memorization thus far." This all changes with the rehearsal I attended. Afternoon light is low and glowing through windows as they are being shuttered up with cardboard. Two striped young cats flit in and out of the drapes while the directors prepare the performance space for the night's work. While we talk, the dancers trickle in, stretch, warm up, chat, move about the space they already own. They are obviously comfortable here, and comfortable with the intimate working style of both directors. Austin enjoys seeing the dancers work as collaborators, too, as each brings their own input to the piece beyond their roles as participant dancers. "This really is a group-mind activity. The dancers voices are heard." And the performers are eager, even antsy, for Austin to "stop changing things and practice finish to start" so they can get begin to embrace the whole a month out from opening night.

Because Austin and Nehil have been diligently working together on this piece, their piece, they answer my query in nearly the exact same words. What do they want their audience to get out of the performance? Gems or take aways from the experience? "To laugh!" The noir-inspired, grotesque, dark piece? We'll laugh? "There's certainly humor involved. An undercurrent of sadness. Sure, there are the noir images, but ludicrousness shines through the struggle for dominance theme in the original movie and in our piece, and we want our audience to share in that part of the art," upholds Austin. "It's been a fun an interesting process," chimes Nehil. He not only wants to connect the layers of each element in the piece to one another, but also to connect to the audience on a different, perhaps more saturated level.

The attitude—experimental, burbling over with moxie, invigorating—that drives the preparation for Bandage a Knife is also at the core of Austin's work, period. Performance Works NW (PWNW) emerged in 1999 in a "funny, funky neighborhood" that offers a mix of working class, Russian and Asian immigrants, and the ubiquitous urban hipster. Austin loves this Foster-Powell 'hood where she and technical director Jeff Forbes founded their creative center. "The mix of neighbors have been supportive of the performance space", and Austin hopes to be able to "reach out more to neighbors, schools, and local businesses" by presenting even more accessible, visible offerings. PWNW's focus has always been to provide a variety of arts—not just dance, but experiments in video, music, movement, puppetry, installations—an entrée into the public domain. Many local artists, dancers, and groups have been launched into that realm with a vote of confidence at and from the performance center.

With Bandage as Nehil's first foray into co-directorship at this scale, he is "eager to see the arc" of the finished piece. With the promise of dramatic themes, the blending of various artistic forms of expression, spiked with moments of levity, we are, too.

Linda Austin Dance + Seth Nehil
Bandage a Knife
November 13-22