From the we-swear-we’re-not-making-this-up file comes news that New York’s Nerve Ensemble, a group of performance artists, presented spam.show, “a one-night modern junk e-mail spectacular” on Nov. 15 at the Zipper Theater & Bar in Manhattan.
Sheeesh! You mean we coulda put on a show? Imagine the storylines and costumes! Let’s check out the Nerve Ensemble’s Web site to see what this group is all about:
“Ideas for programming generally come from early visual explorations into a topic. Original exploratory drawings and sweeping visual research form the foundation of each project,” says copy on the home page. “This imagery becomes the emotional geography for a story, which is subsequently created through exploratory rehearsals and a range of play development techniques. Nerve Ensemble members play an integral part the early landscape of each story.
“More evocative than literal, initial drawings and images act as a catalyst for designers and performers. A sketch of a collapsed bridge leads to a scene about the end of a marriage; a series on ocean and sky evokes a dance about meetings and interruptions in a life.”
A collapsed bridge? The end of a marriage? Ooh, what depth.
Think of the inspirational possibilities spam offers. Here’s an idea: A skit called “Fake Viagra” could involve a midget dressed as a penis who never realizes his dream of becoming a professional basketball player. Yeah? Yeah? Like it?
Ok, so the midget-penis piece is probably not serious enough and waay too politically incorrect—the idea of a penis wanting to play basketball, that is. Penises have no hands, after all, and we shouldn’t make fun.
Or how about “Dance of the Nigerian 419 Scammers?” Oops. Now we’ve offended 419 scammers who, of course, don’t all dance.
How about a breast-cream skit where two people dressed as cantaloupes … yeah, yeah, we know. Too derivative of the midget-penis plot.
Man, performance art can be so intellectually challenging.
