Ko Fest 2010: It's all in the family

By Bonnie Wells
Staff Writer

Published on July 02, 2010

Onstage at Amherst College this summer, Sky Woman falls from the spirit world onto the back of a no-doubt surprised turtle, a Cajun werewolf lets fly with a howl at the plight of southeastern Louisiana and Alice and her Wonderland cohorts tell a tale of a girl desperate to fit in entirely without words.

Oh, and did I mention the traditional Jewish lesbian wedding?

That's just a taste of the theatrical moments in store when the Ko Festival of Performance takes up residence at the college next week for its 19th summer season. The fest brings together artists from across the country to present the sort of timely, innovative and provocative theater that one generally has to buck traffic in a distant metropolis to enjoy. The festival also offers a series of six-day theater workshops, open to the public, and artist residencies, a kind of incubator for the development of new work, which may appear in Ko's performance series in the future.

From its inception, Ko has eschewed traditional scripted drama for what is called "devised theater," which means, "The people who create it, present it - like a singer-songwriter," says Ko's artistic director Sabrina Hamilton of Belchertown.

Just back from a theater conference in Chicago, she says that lo these 19 years later, devised theater is all the rage. It's from her vantage point on the board of the Network of Ensemble Theater, comprising 144 companies around the country, that she creates the summer performance season. In recent years, she has fashioned the series around a theme. Last year "Comedy" was king. This year it's all about the family.

"I look for pieces that talk to each other," Hamilton says, "because we set up a conversation over the summer."

There's a literal component to her explanation. A post-show discussion is offered at every performance, moderated by Kermit Dunkelberg, co-founder of Pilgrim Theater, based in Ashfield.

This year the conversation begins July 9-11, with "When We Danced," created and performed by Gregory Ramos, best known for his "Border Stories," about LGBT Chicanos living in El Paso, Texas, Juarez, Mexico, and Las Cruces, N.M.

Ramos, a theater professor at the University of Vermont, created "When We Danced" from interviews he conducted with aging pioneers of the Stonewall era, the gay-rights struggle that began as the 1960s slipped into the '70s. In it, Ramos transforms into a dozen characters - male, female, young and old - to share the stories of those who laid the foundation for domestic partnerships, civil unions and, here in Massachusetts, gay marriage.

"Now they're aging," said Hamilton. "They never thought they would." Then she quotes a line from the show: "I'm a drag queen; I do Marilyn Monroe. Who wants to see a 60-year-old Marilyn Monroe?"

The next show in the series is especially reflective of Hamilton's quest to choose performances that not only break new theatrical ground, but also speak to the issues of the Valley community. Quest Productions, a Washington, D.C.,-based company composed of deaf, hearing-impaired and hearing actors, will present "Alice," about a girl on a quest to fit into her family and, by extension, her world.

"In a year when we've been forced to think a lot about how young girls, in particular, do and don't fit into our community, and about cultural difference, isolation and bullying, I think [this story] can play a key part in our ongoing dialogue on the subject," Hamilton writes in a statement.

The company's fanciful take on Lewis Carroll's classic "Alice in Wonderland" - done entirely without spoken language - is an example of what the company calls "visual theater."

"It's all done with the body," Hamilton says. They become the trees, become the caterpillar."

Puppets and peanut butter

The circle of family widens to include all life when the New York-based Mettawee River Theatre Company presents "The Woman Who Fell From the Sky," based on an Irofixture of the Ko season, performing an all-ages show with puppets and live music under the stars on the Amherst College Observatory lawn.

"We get kids with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and those with fancy hampers and wine glasses," says Hamilton. "I always sneak around front so I can see the faces, and those whose faces are smeared with peanut butter and those with wine glasses are wearing the exact same expressions. It's my personal favorite moment every year."

Mothers, daughters, sisters and poetry are up next when Erika Batdorf, head of the theater graduate program at York University in Toronto, performs her one-woman show "Poetic License."

The award-winning show begins in a classroom with Marti, a creative writing professor poised to walk out on her life. Before it's through, the audience is treated to a tapestry of poetry by Yeats, Blake, Kerouac, Ginsberg, Baudelaire, Wilde, Plath and others.

It made Hamilton's cut when she used the time on a train trip to view a taped version of the show and found herself both mesmerized and reduced to tears.

Speaking of weeping, Hamilton said it was the tears of grown men leaving Sara Felder's "Creating Solo Performance" workshop last year - saying, "This workshop changed my life!" - along with Felder's hugely successful performance of "Out of Sight," that earned the San Francisco- and Philadelphia-based solo artist, playwright and juggler a return to the fest this year.

Felder will perform her "June Bride," about the aforementioned traditional Jewish lesbian wedding, and lead another workshop in solo performance.

The festival closes with another outdoor show, "Loup Garou" (French for werewolf), a collaboration by the New Orleans companies ArtSpot Productions and Mondo Bizarro. Billed as a song of love and hope for their endangered homeland, "Loup" explores the interconnectedness among the land, family legacy and culture in Louisiana. The show is performed by Mondo co-founder and co-artistic director Nick Slie with poetry, live Cajun music by Whit and Barbara Connah and a visual installation by Jeff Becker.

Bonnie Wells can be reached at bwells@gazettenet.com.