In its ongoing envelope-pushing curatorship, the Roy and Edna Disney CalArts Theater brings new and exciting dance, film, theater and other performance work to its downtown stage. This week, for only three shows in two days, Friday, April 17, at 8 p.m. and Saturday, April 18, .at 2 and 8 p.m., the downtown space hosts the NY-based choreographic duo Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener. In a creative collaboration with electronic musician, Mas Ysa, vocal artist Charmaine Lee, media designer Jesse Stiles and lighting designer Davison Scandrett, the artists will present the West Coast premiere of “Open Machine.”
“Open Machine” is described in promotional materials as “a dynamic work that imagines an Artificial Intelligence lovingly programmed by experimental dance.” Grounded in an improvisational approach to movement and performance, the embodied result also includes “live speech-to-text transcription, projected images and virtual renderings that amplify and react to the unfolding dance.”
Given its in-the-moment innovations, the resulting experience is one-of-a-kind at each iteration. The creatives intend to “blur the lines between brain, body and machine,” as the eight performers “navigate the stage with precision and abandon.”
Mitchell and Riener met when they were both dancers in the world-renowned Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Their work together for the stage, galleries and site-responsive venues since 2010 has travelled across the globe to prestigious theaters and festivals, including the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Barbican Centre, homeLA, The Walker Art Center and MoMA.
On Friday, April 17, there will be a post-show Q&A with the artists moderated by Katy Dammers, REDCAT’s deputy director and chief curator for performing arts.
—Benn Widdey, Culture Spot LA
LOCATION:
631 W. Second St., LA 90012
TICKETS:
$14 – $29
https://ci.ovationtix.com/34348/production/1258760?performanceId=11730950
INFO:
https://www.redcat.org/events/2026/mitchell-riener
https://www.rashaunsilasdance.com
Photo courtesy of Roy and Edna Disney CalArts Theater (REDCAT) by Paula Lobo