Alive from Off Center

Muscular punk icon Henry Rollins hosts this presentation of spoken-word poetry performances. The performances by the poets range from straight readings to recitations accompanied by histrionics and stylized video effects. Performances include the following: Matthew Courtney performs "Honey, I'm Home"; Sharon Mesmer flirts with existentialist philosopher Sartre in "Jean-Paul Sartre"; Carl Watson deals with time and physics in "Heart Attack"; Don Bajema explains male violence in "I Know What You Women Want"; and Rollins discusses the word "kill." Then Maggie Estep offers her comic meditation on loyalty, which is called "I Swear"; Bob Holman performs his hip-hop piece, "The United States of Poetry"; Nicole Breedlove condemns the frivolousness of the media in "Front Page or Bust"; Deacon Lunchbox performs "Lewis Grizzard, I'm Callin' You Out"; John Leguizamo performs "Latinisms," which is accompanied by the music of Rene DeJesus, Roland Ramos, and Federico Vasquez; and Heather B. raps a capella in "A Positive Piece." In addition, Sekou Sundiata reads from "Blink Your Eyes," which is about police harassment; Willie Perdomo recites "Nigger-Reecan Blues" with help from Paul Beatty and Tito Lespier; Suzi-Lori Parks reads from "Blacks and Jews in New York"; Rollins offers thoughts about censorship; Mutabaruka performs "The Prisoner"; Peter Cook pantomines a poem called "I Am Ordered Now to Talk"; KRS-1 explains the need for cross-cultural education in "You Must Learn"; Todd Colby shouts about the reason why he is nearly "freaking out," in a piece from "Lemon Brown"; Jessica Hagedorn reads "Lullaby" with Paloma Hagedorn Woo; Thomas Pinnock tells "An Immigrant Folk Tale"; and Rollins states that others should express their views through poetry.

This program consists of two quirky, short comedic films by writer/director Hal Hartley: "Theory of Achievement" and "Ambition." "Theory of Achievement" is set in Williamsburg, New York -- "the Paris of Brooklyn" -- and concerns the intermingling of several overeducated, underemployed young adults who ruminate on the nature of art and life, as they search for cheap apartments while avoiding the drudgery of unsatisfying employment. "Ambition" concerns a man who studies his own intense need to accomplish great things in a world that is "a dangerous and uncertain place." With dialogue and action that is absurdly comic, this film examines the ideals and contradictions of desire.

"Praise House" is an ensemble dance-theater piece by the Urban Bush Women.

Dinizulu and his African Dancers, Drummers and Singers; Susan Marshall's "Contenders."

This installment features a collection of elaborately staged and filmed modern-dance routines by the avant-garde dance troupe Ultima Vez. The program begins without any sort of introduction; the first piece consists simply of two men blowing on a feather in an effort to keep it afloat. In another routine, a male dancer stalks a female dancer around a post-apocalyptic urban set. Whenever he reaches out to molest her, she dodges the advances by twisting her body at the precise moment at which he would make contact. After a few minutes, she begins to fight back, stomping her feet at the man and creating a simple rhythm with her footwear. The group also explores natural rhythms in a piece that is based around the members' throwing cinder blocks at each other. A few of the moves are stunts; one man throws a large brick thirty feet into the air and stands under it as it falls back towards him, only to get pushed out of the way at the last second by another dancer. Large chunks of this footage are presented in slow motion. The last routine the group performs is made up of an unusual series of actions. One dancer soaks his shirt in a cauldron of boiling water as he tells a fairy tale about the plight of a bird stuck on a sky-less Earth. Eventually, the man takes the soaking shirt out of the pot and puts it on. As he wrings out the still boiling water, another dancer convulses on the ground next to him.

Ruby Shang's "Dances in Exile"; "Loose the Thread" by San Francisco's Oberlin Dance Company

"The Dormitory (Le Dortoir)" is a stage work by the dance group Carbone 14.