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DSDT Double Feature!

Wednesday, 9/17 at 7 pm PST AND Sunday, 9/21 at 7 pm PST 

LOVE(SIC) 1992, 1 hour run time

“...the piece was incisive and witty on a subject that touched a lot of nerves in a city full of single and newly single women." - SF BAY GUARDIAN: Arts and Entertainment: Dance

With keen observations on the dynamics between the sexes, LOVE(sic) is a tableau of fears and desires where the power of these "feisty" women derives from their ability to keep going. Bob Davis, dressed in his own desires, creates a wonderful bed of sound in which Joya Cory, Helen Dannenberg and Deborah Slater, talk, dance, sing and challenge the nature of Romantic Love on Matt Antaky’s simple and ingenious set.

PASSING AS…THE MATHEMATICS OF BEING (EXCERPTS) 1998, 12" excerpt

Tackling personal and cultural assimilation and otherness with "beauty and honesty" - Jenna Marshall, Citysearch Online

‘Personal and cultural assimilation and otherness are weighty issues to tackle without resorting to heavy-handed cliches. "Passing as...the Mathematics of Being," … delves deeply into these uncomfortable topics with beauty and honesty.  … Choreographer Deborah Slater and lighting designer Jack Carpenter create a physical space that represents and emphasizes the thematic ideas of isolation and perceptual deception. By giving the audience a sense that we were missing some important information from the other side, Slater made us question our assumptions and realize that our perceptions are always limited. Aided by the impact of the two-stage format, powerful personal stories took the abstract themes to accessible, even intimate levels.”  Jenna Marshall, Citysearch Featuring Terry Hatfield, Jennifer Kesler, Lisa Okuhn, Sydney Ortiz, Isabelle Schildknecht, April Shen, Paul Santiago, Sam Mitchell and Hilary Bryan.

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We're bringing couches back. Deborah Slater commissioned sculptor Wayne Zebzda to create this magical couch for her "Died Suddenly" piece for the Jean Cocteau Centenary Celebration in LA in 1989. It moves, it flips, it opens and it has mirrors on it. See it, and her, in action on Sunday night in an online screening of the piece. https://2ndline.tv/diedsuddenly2

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The narrator’s identity is lost in the beyond-death craving of lovers - “grabbing at her soul, he settled for my skin.”

Clad in a slinky cocktail-dress-cum-jumpsuit, alternately manipulating and manipulated by both a curious moving sofa and a three-tiered trapeze, Slater was at her intellectual and physical best. A master at creating the indolent gesture that implies everything, Slater can take full-throttle acrobatics where they’ve never gone before, into expression of the deepest subconscious.

“Died Suddenly” concludes with Slater swinging back and forth on the trapeze, her character lost in a not-unpleasant limbo of erotic anonymity - it has the sort of reverberation that can haunt you for days.

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Died Suddenly, 1989

Watch Deborah Slater perform in her extraordinary solo, DIED SUDDENLY, A solo commissioned by the Los Angeles County Arts Commission for the 1989 Cocteau Centenary in Los Angeles, co-produced by Barnsdall Art Park (L.A.) and CIRCUIT NETWORK (S.F.). DIED SUDDENLY was written by Julie Hebert, choreographed and performed by Deborah Slater, co-directed by Julie Hebert and Mary Forcade, with music composed by Gina Leishman and additional music by Steven Peters. Wayne Zebzda created the couch and Joe Williams built the trapeze. 25 minutes

“Died Suddenly, commissioned earlier this year for the Jean Cocteau Centenary Celebration. Based loosely on a character from the great surrealist’s writings, Hébert’s text (...along with a typically brilliant programmatic score by Gina Leishman) details the erotic/transcendent experience of a woman who meets her friend’s lover only after the friend has died. ...the two make love in a morbid menage a trois, with the dead friend a silent presence...’grabbing at her soul, he settled for my skin.’’

- Dennis Harvey/SF Weekly

Buy Tickets and Watch Online!

Wednesday, August 6th at 7 pm PST (10 pm EST) with special guest Julie Herbert: https://2ndline.tv/diedsuddenly

Sunday, August 10th at 7 pm PST (10 pm EST) : live chat with Deborah Slater as you watch : https://2ndline.tv/diedsuddenly2

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Recognize this sweet young thing? It’s Deborah Slater herself! Watch her perform in her 1987 piece “Rashomon Variations.” #dsdtonline

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The work began as a collaboration with composer Bob Davis as part of a Residency at Intersection for the Arts.

“Based on the story, ‘In a Grove,’ by Akutagawa (also the basis for Arturo Kurosawa’s film ‘Rashomon’), ‘Rashomon Variations’ tackles a fascinating subject - the shifting nature of truth - and turns it into a compelling work of theater. “  And becomes “...a tightly crafted portrait of illusion and false truths.”  ...“The comic absurdity of man’s actions when they collide with fate, and the bitter side of humanity have always surfaced like leitmotifs in Slater’s work.”   Janice Ross/Oakland Tribune 1987

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Rashomon Variations. Performers: Katherine Lyons, Paul Codiga, Deborah Slater, Nicki Schouela. Composer: Bob Davis. Set: Alessandro Moruzzi. 1987 at Intersection for the Arts.

"...RASHOMON VARIATIONS" tackles a fascinating subject - the shifting nature of truth - and turns it into a compelling work of theater. [It] is a tightly crafted portrait of illusions and false truth..."

- Janice Ross, Oakland Tribune

Buy Tickets and Watch Online!

Sunday, July 6th at 7 pm PST / 10 pm EST: https://2ndline.tv/rashomon1

Wednesday, July 9th at 7 pm PST / 10 pm EST: https://2ndline.tv/rashomon2

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Upcoming July: RASHOMON, 1987 “ Sunday, July 6th at 7 pm PST (10 pm EST) and Wednesday, July 9th at 7 pm PST (10 pm EST). Find out more and pay what you can to RSVP here. ” August: DIED SUDDENLY,...