PERFORMANCE ART REVIEW : LORETTA LIVINGSTON’S ‘MEN’S PIECE’

In her years as a dancer with Bella Lewitzky and as a locally based dancer/choreographer ever since, Loretta Livingston always exemplified refinement.

Meticulous in technique, subtle in expression and highly personal, her dancing and the pieces she made for herself or others have reflected a belief in craft, in mastery, in point-with-pride professionalism.

How gutsy, then, for her to abandon the priorities of her previous work--including the emphasis on intuitive feminine vision--and work with (mostly) non-dancers on a performance art venture exploring masculine identity.

Presented Wednesday in the Gallery Theatre of Barnsdall Art Park, Livingston’s two-part, 80-minute “Men’s Piece” ultimately seemed less a finished or developed creation than a living notebook: a series of promising workshop projects in male behavior to be drawn upon in the future.

In its scope and many of its failings it resembled Tim Miller’s “Democracy in America” and Liz Lerman’s “Russia: Footnotes to History” (both seen locally on the “Explorations” series)--extravaganzas that began as attempts to gain an authentic perspective on alien realms of experience.

Starting with an examination of The Handshake as an archetypal movement ritual for men, Livingston used linked hands as a key theme: for example, individuals lifted by teams in theater games that reinforced trust and responsibility. Hand-clapping became a rhythmic adjunct and, in the finale, Livingston re-sequenced these non-dance elements choreographically, rather like Yvonne Rainer in a celebrated early-postmodern showpiece for non-performers, “Chair-Pillow.”

Elsewhere, formalized walking sequences led to quasi-marching, a reminder of the bonding that occurs in the military. Jogging and calisthenics evoked athletics and “Chorus Line”-style friezes deftly isolated characteristic male stances (attitudinizing) of our culture.

More ambitious and problematic: a long series of male creation myths that remained largely uninvestigated research despite the imposing presence of bearded, long-haired Doc Ballard (a well-known lighting designer) as shaman/sage/seer/prophet/storyteller.

Moreover, Livingston’s depiction of male patterns of confrontation, intimidation and physical assault ricocheted confusingly from silly wordplay to clever mime to a nasty portrayal of racism (as usual here, not pursued) and a final stylization (poeticization?) of violence.

Although fatherhood emerged as the central preoccupation of “The Men’s Piece”--both symbolically (sculptor Bob Bassler molding clay) and in a documentary context (composer Michel DeCygne singing one of his songs to his infant son), the most revealing sections involved the three men closest to Livingston personally.

In the only conventional display dancing of the evening, David Plettner (Livingston’s husband and, like her, a former Lewitzky dancer) appeared nearly nude as an archetype--a clay figure from a creation myth, the first man.

Besides his physical contortions, Plettner’s primal emotionalism here recalled Martha Graham’s use of Erick Hawkins (later her husband) in “El Penitente” 46 years ago. Both choreographers gloried in their dancers’ raw physicality and superb control, but from an oddly whimsical viewpoint.

Livingston’s father and brother--Robert and Brian, respectively--appeared in a duet at times profoundly moving (the father bearing his full-grown son on his shoulders in a recapitulation of their relationship decades earlier) but often offensively patronizing.

She had the guts to have father and son ask the big questions of each other (including “What’s the worst thing I ever did?”). But almost immediately she allowed the scene to decline into mere anecdote and a cozy sitcom resolution, neither probing for the essentials of the deepest bond between males nor even allowing the questions time to stimulate the audience’s memory and conscience.

This retreat to upbeat truisms was unexpected in an artist who confidently and sensitively dealt with multigenerational family relationships between women in “Place Settings.”

Perhaps the lapse betrayed her insecurity with her subject--or, perhaps, her fear of learning something she doesn’t really want to know.

Either way, “The Men’s Piece” represented only a tentative foray into a way of working, and a sphere of being, that Livingston should invade again. And soon.