Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick
Multidisciplinary performance, 2006
Biggs premiered her multi-media performance, Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick at the Catalina Hotel and Beach Club, December 6th and 7th, 2006.
Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick examines the rhythm of daily life, the comfort gained by actions known and repeated, and the isolating anxiety and chaos felt when those repeated actions turn into obsession or compulsion.
The piece opens with two synchronized swimmers practicing their entrance to a pool. Once in the pool, the swimmers perform a series of synchronized training moves to the metronome-like beats of two drummers partially submerged in the water. This beat is echoed and expanded by percussionist, Blake Flemming, playing a complete drum kit poolside. As this third drummer builds from a basic rhythm line into an aggressive crescendo the synchronized swimmers begin a routine that builds to spectacular, above and below water, feats of gravity-defying agility and strength.
Large-scale prerecorded video images, inner cut with an underwater camera’s live feed of the swimmers, become a portal into a topsy-turvy underwater world that focuses on the links and disconnects in the rhythmic progression from comfort to chaos.
Credits
Director: Janet Biggs
Drummers: Blake Fleming, Kathryn Refi, Jude Tallichet
Swimmers: Daiky Alfonso, Teresa Luis, Patricia Mitat, Larissa Perez
Videographer: Stephanie Lempert
Production: Bob Cmar, Stephanie Lempert, Ian Rubinstein
Acknowledgements
Special thanks to the performers for their creative inspiration, and to Claire Oliver, Matthew Garson and Robert Cmar for their unending support, and to the Catalina Hotel and Beach Club for their patience and hospitality.
