Curtain Call: Nomadic Practice(s): A Rhythmic Exploration of Everyday Space and Cross/Walking

In 1966, SIU Department of Speech Communication professor Marion Kleinau founded a small theater on the second floor of the Communications Building to celebrate and showcase oral interpretations and encourage the performance of non-traditional literary and theatrical works. Originally named the Calipre Stage, the laboratory space would, for the next thirty years, keep its commitment to help students explore and take non-traditional theatrical creativity to the next level, and allow theater enthusiasts to experience a different kind of stage performance. In 1996, the theater was renamed the Marion Kleinau Theatre in honor of the woman who began the school’s commitment to non-traditional performance art.

The Kleinau opens its forty-fourth season with a double bill. Hunter Fine’s Nomadic Practice(s): A Rhythmic Exploration of Everyday Space and Jonny Gray’s Cross/Walking will play Thursday through Saturday, September 23 through September 25 at 8 p.m.

The first show, Nomadic Practice(s), is the brainchild and creation of doctoral candidate Hunter Fine. The show takes audiences on a journey to discover the rhythms of life as Fine navigates everyday space in his media-driven performance. Fine tells Nightlife that audiences can expect a wide variety of non-traditional performance techniques in the show.

“The show is a multitextual and mediated performance that follows the journeys of a ethnographic rhythm analyst, and uses rhythm as a tool to explore everyday space,” Fine says. “I use my own movements through the space, and ultimately I’m trying to discover the ontological nature of the spaces we all occupy.”

Written, directed by, and starring Fine, the show, while featuring only one breathing cast member, has several characters who the writer hopes the audience will recognize and to whom they will relate.

“The characters and objects that we encounter in everyday space are the cast,” he laughs. “The screen acts a lot as our stage, and there are multiple screens. It uses a lot of different types of media. There’s a lot of new footage that I collected over this past summer, but it follows themes that I’ve been working on for some time.”

While physical space is a large part of the performance, Fine attempts to transcend the constraints of the physical in an attempt to seek out and discover the true rhythms of life, which cannot be captured in tangible space.

Rehearsals are another major difference that set Fine’s show apart from other types of stage presentations.

“The preparation process is definitely different,” he says. “The process becomes very personal, almost autobiographical in nature, unlike stage plays. The process of preparing this is just like the process of the research that I did. With other types of plays, as you rehearse and prepare, you know what the final outcome is going to be, or what you want it to be. With this show, I had no idea what the outcome was going to be. I just hoped to discover something about space and rhythm, and in turn, while discovering things in the research, I discovered the end of the show.”

Using both sight and sound-driven recorded media, Nomadic Practice(s) not only takes audiences on a multimedia journey through the wonders of rhythm and physical space, but also encourages a more thoughtful look at the concept of multitextual performance art.

The second performance on the two-show bill is Cross/Walking. Written, directed by, and starring Jonny Gray, this solo production emphasizes biocentric and revealing processes and perceptions, challenging the constraints of traditional ecological thinking and practice. Challenging audiences to reexamine traditional concepts of nature and environment, the performance encourages a focus on life’s journey rather than its destination, and invites audiences to meditate on the spaces between places and how humans move and interact between and among the spaces.

General admission tickets are $7 and student tickets are $5. For tickets and other information, call the Kleinau box office at (618) 453-5618 or visit <http://SpeechCommunication.siu.edu> and follow the link to the Kleinau Theatre.

who: Hunter Fine and Jonny Gray

what: Nomadic Practice(s): A Rhythmic Exploration of Everyday Space / Cross Walking (live theater / performance art showcase)

where: SIU Communications Building Marion Kleinau Theatre

when: Thursday through Saturday, September 23 through September 25