Immediate Gratification, In This Case, Is a Very Good Thing
By Michelle Meywes Kopeny in Arts & Entertainment on Sep 29, 2011 3:00PM
It’s no surprise that America has a very short attention span these days. Wait, what was it that we were talking about? Oh right, short attention spans. This concept fueled choreographer Paul Christiano to develop a piece in 2010 called “ADHDivas” that pokes fun at the “DirecTV generation” while giving them exactly what they want. The choreography is as fast paced as the Girl Talk-esque soundscore -- if Girl Talk’s Greg Gillis lived in a Max Headroom cartoon video game existence -- that Christiano composed himself during rehearsals. It’s an assault of stimulus that gives you little room to be distracted, that is, distracted by anything not on the stage.
This year, Christiano expanded the idea into an entire production called Immediate Gratification for Chicago’s Dance Crash, where he serves as guest director for the first time. The show presents as a “stream of consciousness” with no breaks and at times, no rhyme or reason. To be sure to not lose audience interest from the start, the program lists exactly how long each segment is, including a “Pregnant Pause” in place of an intermission that promises to be no longer than three minutes. The show itself begins just like watching television as a stage within a stage presents different "programs"—including a very talented teddy bear gymnast and a not so coordinated sandwich artist-broken up by dance interlude "commercials.”
“"Vvroom Vvroom" Ishkabiblitz & the Lonely Hearts Club” comes in as the focal center of the show, logging in at an extensive 16 minutes. Led by The Island Theater Company’s Quinten Quintero as Ozzy “Vvroom Vvroom,” the crew gets a loaded lesson in speed dating. But the highlight of the show came right after the Lonely Hearts Club’s uprising against their instructor. Set to Scala & Kolacny Brothers cover of Radiohead's “Creep” (also known as the eerie Social Network theme), “what r u wearing” was a stark contrast to the comical, carefree attitude of the evening, making it all the more affecting. A punch-in-the-chest eHarmony rejection form letter precedes this heartbreaking yet beautiful duet by Christiano and guest dancer Autumn Eckman.
The only downside of Immediate Gratification is that it only runs for two weekends. But maybe it’s representative of the larger picture: that getting exactly what you want whenever you want isn’t always a good thing.
Immediate Gratification completes its run this weekend at the Ruth Page Center for the Arts, 1016 N. Dearborn, with performances Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. Tickets are $20 ($24 at the door).