Heaven on Earth (review)

Perhaps the collapse of civilization would be a positive event. Life would likely continue, and humankind might be happier without the structures and limitations of contemporary society. This was the premise of Heaven on Earth, a dance-theatre performance piece developed from a Charles Mee script by the American and French performance groups Witness Relocation and Ildi! Eldi. Through dance and stylized movement, the performers constructed a highly physicalized vision of a more egalitarian, tranquil, and environmentally friendly society that might emerge from the wreckage of postmodern culture. Posting the play's text online through his (re)making project website, Mee encourages potential performers to freely adapt his words to create a singular and collaborative performance. Like many of Mee's scripts, Heaven on Earth relies on the interplay among diverse texts and challenges the artists to create a physical representation of highly discursive material. This particular script draws from various sources, including the work of Arthur Leonard, Isaac Bashevis Singer, the catalog of Revolution Seeds, and O, The Oprah Magazine. Through athletic choreography, idiosyncratic movement, and playful staging, the performers of Witness Relocation and Ildi! Eldi created a fitting kinetic embodiment of Mee's intertextual rendering of societal breakdown and reorganization.

Heather Christian, Sean Donovan, Abigail Browde, Mike Mikos, Sophie Cattani (hidden), Antoine Oppenheim, and Francois Sabourin in Heaven on Earth. (Photo: Agate Elie.)

In many ways, the performers' approach to intercultural collaboration and openness to physical risk was just as discursive as the text. The production included various self-referential nods toward its multinational creative process, such as one performer speaking in English with another overlapping in French. These multilingual flourishes reinforced the themes of community reconstruction and the breakdown of boundaries, while highlighting the production's genesis. Founded in 2000 by graduates of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, Witness Relocation is a dance-theatre ensemble based in New York City and led by director and choreographer Dan Safer. Ildi! Eldi is a similar collective of artists who produce devised theatre in France. Both troupes' performances involve intense physicality, eschew scripted text as the primary basis for action, and utilize collaboration through all areas of the creative process. Safer's approach to choreography in this production involved a variety of movement styles, ranging from vigorous modern dance to stylized everyday gestures. Heaven on Earth was originally developed at Les Subsistances, a French artistic laboratory that offers residence, workshop space, and administrative assistance for experimental performers. The sense of intercultural community displayed throughout the performance likely resulted from the extended rehearsal process and close quarters offered at Les Subsistances.

The staging of Heaven on Earth resembled the aftermath of a particularly raucous suburban-backyard party, complete with Astroturf, streamers, patio furniture, a barbecue pit, and numerous television sets. The seemingly random arrangement of objects gave the performers space to freely interact with one

Heather Christian in Heaven on Earth. (Photo: Lee Wexler.)

another and their surroundings. Pacing was established immediately when the pre-show abruptly ended with the sound of a failing generator, as the audience was left in utter darkness. A figure with a flashlight walked down from upstage and attached jumper cables to a battery, which powered a naked fluorescent light and a number of television monitors. There were numerous sudden changes in the pacing, often in the form of Heather Christian's kinetic dance interludes, which demolished patterns established in preceding scenes. In the first extended scene of the performance, constructed from dialogue and descriptions found throughout the script, the performers engaged in choreographed movements of relaxation and stretching as they looked out into the audience as if they were observing an exceedingly beautiful nature scene. Early on, Witness Relocation member Sean Donovan introduced a major theme when he described predictions of the end of the world in the year 1000 ce, explaining: "What they...