By Jim Gilles
On Sunday evening at 7:00 p.m. at the 2684 Lacy Street Townhouse Lofts in Los Angeles was an innovative solo dance performance The Messenger featuring dancer Julienne Mackey.
Choreographed by Olivia Mia Orozco and conceived by Orozco and Mackey working together, this 40-minute-long performance piece was staged in the open patio space of the Lacy Street complex as the work/living space of approximately 50 artists of various sorts. Created by Olivia Mia Orozco in collaboration with Julienne Mackey, the dance performance was presented inside Laurie Shapiro’s installations in Los Angeles.
Informed by Hopi creation and agricultural mythology, and Hopi Folktales, the work blends these influences to create an inspired story honoring the earth and bringing lessons from the past to enrich our futures collectively. The work plays with themes of the infinite nature of reality and the interconnected-ness in us all. The audience will move through the outdoor space, through Laurie’s installations, and have a last look at the “Pleasure Garden” before the show ends.
The beginning of the dance was at the entrance gate on Lacy Street in a set of dance moves without music that invited to walk to the inner courtyard with its channel fountain where Ms. Mackey danced along the waterway of the fountain to the accompaniment of the splashing water and the chirping birds in the trees. Eventually the dancer waved us inside the complex into a single loft studio with 20-foot ceilings, where the rest of the performance took place.
This studio loft apartment is decorated with the stunning artwork of Laurie Shapiro, which features a blaze of colors and organic shapes on the walls, ceilings, and even the floor. Julienne Mackey was wearing a multicolored costume designed by Elisa Montecastro and inspired by The Book of the Hopi by Frank Waters and The Magic Hummingbird narrated by Michael Lomatuway’ma. Inside the stunning decorated studio loft, we first saw dancer Julienne Mackey up on the second-floor walkway, throwing rose petals down to the voice of Marlene Colonel in Spanish and original music by the electronic band Acadjmia.
As the dancer descends the stairway to the painted plastic-covered floor, her movements tell the story of the search
for water as she is the personification of “The Messenger” in this dance to
the track “Go Dugong Vidita
(El Buho Remix). Her somewhat frantic movements to the track.”
Dancing and crawling around on the floor suggest the parched land without water, as she moves to the track “Wandering Sadu – Desert Dwellers.” Eventually she discovers a swing suspended from the ceiling. With her hands, she seeks to open a portal into the water source. Eventually she sits in the swing and moves in circles almost as if swimming in a pond of water, as the music of the track “Rainstick Meditation” seems to answer the dancer’s desire to find water.
This is one of several such Performative Pop-ups that Mia Orozco has been orchestrating around Los Angeles. Her goal is to bridge the gap between communities and spaces to transform the Los Angeles art landscape. For more information, go to: https://performativepopups.com/