Let's get pataphysical

AS220 unleashes a new circus

by Michael Caito

VIDA

After their traditional month-long hiatus, AS220 reopens Saturday. Perhaps not coincidentally, several of Providence's neighboring cities have seen non-juried performance / gallery spaces taking root, striving to make their collective presence felt in New Bedford, Fall River, Cumberland and Worcester. This week, Providence's V Majestic perform on Fri / Sat nights in a benefit at New Bedford's Gallery X, a space sprung from a converted church, while only last month AS220 pooled resources with Fall River's Renaissance Gallery (located in a refurb'd factory) for another gallery exchange exhibit, with works by the respective cities' artists on display in the other's venue. Heading north-by-northwest, the Blackstone River Theatre is ramping up their inaugural season, while WAG, or the Worcester Artist Group, is still around, more or less, in Wormtown.

But back in Providence this week, author / musician Jonathan Thomas sat down in the East Side home he shares with his wife, musician Angel Dean and their lovable pound pooches Convoy and Diesel to discuss things pataphysical. Thomas, or JT, has been found-object percussionist for a number of ensembles, currently thwapping metal and wood bits with knitting needles of varying girths for the His Panic Band. Next weekend marks the debut of the Pataphysical Circus, the brainchild of JT, Pork Chop Lounge's Lizzie Araujo, managing director / His Panic member Shawn Wallace and some dude named Bert. On tap: staged excerpted readings of various mayhem-inducing manifestos throughout history, free-style timed and judged musical duets, a sterling a cappella quartet from Indiana called VIDA (a more modernist, though equally Euro-centric take on the trio Zorgina) and more.

We'll define terms in a minute, but suffice it to say that performance stratagems birthed at AS220, from early Cabaret of the Oddly Normal through Meatballs / Fluxus, the Gold Star Invitational and the newfangled Pataphysical Circus, are often soaked with humor and dollops of vaudeville, anarchy and irony, and have followed the Space's trek from Weybosset to Richmond to their permanent home on Empire Street.

While the Space's recent attempt to expand into the Packard Building was fetched a pimp-slap, many programs thrive apace, from the Pork Chop Lounge's rampant success to equally-important, if less easily recognizable accomplishments like a new recording label, a kick-azz website (AS220.org -- a definitive stop for those seeking artsy links in RI), free Internet and darkroom access, expanded café offerings, a debut literary anthology and more.

Q: Is there a regular schedule for the Pataphysical Circus?

A: It'll be a monthly thing, but it's going to be on a floating schedule within the month, depending on who's coming through town and what [AS220's] general scheduling looks like. So if [Czech Republic experimentalists] Uz Jsme Doma are going to be in town we'd like to schedule the Circus for when they can make it, just because that would be appropriate to feature. They'll probably be through a few more times. They like it at AS220 -- they like the atmosphere, the response, the turnout is decent enough, and they're not in it strictly for the guarantee. They play for fun.

This was originally Bert [Crenca]'s brainchild, on the grounds that it would be [good] to reinstitute something at AS220 that was less predictable than a lot of the other events. You've got Pork Chop Lounge, always a wild card, and other things going on that are experimental in one way or another. But this would be more open-ended. What constitutes experimental is much more up to people's own ideas of what they'd like to see and to be doing there. That relates to the pataphysics angle. You asked before what pataphysics was, and it's a tough question. Alfred Jarry, the guy who came up with Pere Ubu and had a pretty interesting sort of fin de siecle life pre-dating Futurists and Dada and Surrealism, came up with a pseudo-scientific philosophy called pataphysics. By coincidence there was an Evergreen Review which has all sorts of ramifications of pataphysics, with all sorts of pithy statements. (Reading) "Pataphysics relates each thing and each event not to any generality but to the singularity that makes it an exception. Thus the science of pataphysics attempts no cures, envisages no progress, distrusts all claims of improvement in the state of things and is innocent of any message. Pataphysics is pure science -- lawless" [by Roger Shattuck, Evergreen Review 1960]. It's relativistic as hell, but it's also an interesting parallel to semiotics, where, if you ask a semiotician what the hell is semiotics and he hems and haws, it kind of makes the whole business a little suspect. Whereas a pataphysician will just make up something different each time, and that only validates it further. That's the kind of open-endedness we want in terms of experimentation and what we'll be showing.

Q: It's critical to have something going on where you don't know what you're going to get when you walk in the door. AS220 has always construed that as important, and taken it upon itself to keep that going. That's heartening.

A: Something with a little edge. In a lot of cases it's a matter of getting the word out there. These days Washington, DC has a great scene because they've somehow managed to get the general word out that acts are in town, and people go check them out. It wasn't like that in the '70s or '80s -- it was pretty dead then -- but suddenly they had the personalities who are willing to get the word out on things.

Q: Compare and contrast the His Panic Band and Amoebic Ensemble.

A: Both have progressive tendencies, both have pretty out-there tendencies. The Amoebics have a very focused sound and a particular level of seriousness, whereas there's more of an element of vaudeville, more of an element of catch-all, with His Panic Band. The Amoebics would focus on refinement, whereas everyone in the His Panic Band is always busy subverting one another. So you have old-timey country tendencies, minimalist tendencies, kraut-rock tendencies, which aren't so different from minimalist tendencies. You've got outright pop, some stray psychedelia here and there. Philosophically it's democratic and open-ended, so in that sense it's an appropriate band to be hosting the Pataphysical Circus.

Another thing we're doing is somewhat experimental music but more on the vaudeville end of things. "The Ultimate Improv" [portion of the program] is loosely inspired by Ultimate Fighting, based on the idea that when you go to a lot of free music [performances], duets in particular, improvisers seem to be playing with each other but they're really in rivalry, trying to out-cool one another, one way or another, so that when you're watching one of these shows it starts to get like a tennis or ping-pong game. Sort of a poetry slam, both making noise at the same time for a set amount of time, and a panel of volunteer judges from the audience who will judge it on whatever terms they see fit. In the sportscasting [vein], there will be running commentary, too, so people won't miss any flagrant or worthwhile action. Combining free experimental improv music with tennis, or possibly hockey. Australian Rules football maybe. Just so that we don't seem like such pikers we're awarding cool CDs as prizes. Allen Ginsberg, Cecil Taylor. Idon't want to make it sound like the evening is taking itself too seriously. That wouldn't be pataphysical.

The Pataphysical Circus debuts at AS220 Saturday, August 8.

SHOWS IN BRIEF. Happy Birthday to youse at the Met and Lupo's Friday, with Gruvis Malt, Freak Show, the L.U.V.'s, Thee Mr. Rogers Project, Formula, Pappy Chullo and Robots of Servotron in a generous portion of up-and-coming talent, while Greg Abate hits Water Place just before sundown with pianist Mark Soskin, bassist Howie Swartz, percussionist Ed Uribe and conga player Chembo Corniel, all of whom joined Abate in-studio on the alto player's latest, and arguably best, Happy Samba (DAMusic). Cooking. Another weekend anniversary involves the Green Room, turning three with the Fabulous Itchies. The Double Nuthins', whose debut single will be out by Labor Day, play the same room.