Totally Mental

by Lori Hill

performance

"We wanted a space that wasn't a theater, someplace that we could really mess with," says dancer/choreographer Kate Watson-Wallace. She and a handful of other artists had been looking for a suitable venue for a project called The Mentalist, a performance-art-poetry-theater event and they found it in the former Samuel Machinery Company building in Old City. In this "super-raw" spot, says Watson-Wallace, The Mentalist crew can really spread their wings. And what wings they have: Painter Carrie Powell, poet Shaun Walker, video artist Ricardo Rivera, composer Daud Sturdivant, dancers Olase Freeman and Bethany Formica and others are brimming with ideas. Watson-Wallace says the show concerns confinement and its effects on the mind. "It's about when you're confined physically or emotionally, and have to retreat into your imagination as a survival mechanism," she says. "I'm interested in how people create their own worlds and also how we, as women, experience this." While "not by any means a literal interpretation" of such, nor is the piece politically driven, Watson-Wallace says the imagery in the classic feminist short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" was an influence.

The Mentalist promises to be fast-moving and perhaps even a bit cacophonous. Powell will do live graffiti throughout the show, and Rivera's video projections will be laid over that. And because the production runs for four performances, each will be vastly different from a visual perspective, as Powell's artwork builds up on the walls. As for the movement art, Watson-Wallace says it's best to be in the middle of the action. "Half the people will have the experience of the dancers moving around and over them," she says. If you choose to be "in the mix," as she puts it, you could have dancers inches from your face. (The meek shall inherit the sidelines.) The rest: sound clips, acrobatics, punk poetry by Walker ("He's, in a most abstract way, the narrator," says Watson-Wallace), electronic compositions from Sturdivant, body painting — and an on-site hairstylist and clothing designer to switch up the look.

If it sounds a bit scattered, rest assured the artists are a few steps ahead. "We came together with this idea of confinement and imagination and madness then went off and did our own things, then came back together," says Watson-Wallace. In the last few weeks, the group has been jelling their performance, uniting their disparate conceits into a cohesive whole. Good thing: There are plans to restage it at the Fringe.

The Mentalist, Thu.-Fri., May 26-27, 8 p.m.; Sat., May 28, 9 p.m.; Sun., May 29, 2 p.m.; $10, Samuel Machinery Company, 135-137 N. Third St., mentalistphilly@yahoo.com.