SUSHI SERVES UP NEOFEST--AND FOOD

Despite its well-documented reputation as the city’s premier performance art venue, downtown’s Sushi gallery is still mistaken for a Japanese restaurant.

“After seven years, I still get calls from people asking if we serve food,” said Sushi director Lynn Schuette. So perhaps the inclusion of a cabaret performance with a complete meal and a work titled “A Way Around the Soup” is a fitting addition to the roster of Neofest V. Sushi’s monthlong, annual performance art festival opens tonight with “Ophidian Tales” at the Lyceum Space in Horton Plaza.

Among Neofest’s nine performances, two have been commissioned by Sushi, including “Ophidian Tales,” a music and movement collaboration by four local artists-- choreographer Cate Bell, writer Susan Imhoff, sculptor David Keevil and composer Peter Ward. Beginning with the everyday situation of a gardener killing a snake, “Ophidian Tales” recapitulates the act in historical, mythical and even comic guises.

In keeping with Sushi’s iconoclastic tradition, the May 23 cabaret and repast will have as its hostess Karen Finley, a radical feminist performance artist. In her last Sushi appearance, Finley smeared herself with liverwurst and ice cream and did risque things with yams. “The Finley cabaret,” Schuette noted, “will not exactly be your typical suburban dinner theater buffet.”

At Sushi, where nothing is supposed to be typical, adventure is the primary lure.

“Most of our audiences know that all of what they see here will not be good. But it will be new, and they are willing to take the chance,” Schuette said.

Catching young performers and new groups on their way up is Schuette’s forte. Before Broadway and Hollywood discovered the talents of Whoopi Goldberg, she performed at Sushi, and she is the only celebrity member of Sushi’s board of directors. “Our audiences catch the excitement of emerging performers, frequently seeing groups displaying an innocence they will not see again,” Schuette said.

English emigre monologuist David Cole follows “Ophidian Tales” Sunday at the Lyceum Space with his solo act “Redthroats.” Next Friday, Neofest will move to La Jolla’s Sherwood Auditorium for “Crossfire (1987),” danced by Shale, Mary Jane Eisenberg’s company from Los Angeles. Trombonist Miles Anderson and UC San Diego experimental violinist Janos Negesy will realize composer David Felder’s score for the piece.

Neofest’s other commission, “A Way Around the Soup,” is a mixed grill of vegetarian cooking and Marxist politics prepared by Berne, who uses the single name. According to Schuette, “Berne is one of the few traditional performance artists--that is, someone coming from a highly visual orientation--maturing in San Diego. His use of food and audience involvement is unique.” “Soup” will be served at Sushi on May 15 and 16.

“Border-X-Frontera” brings performance art to radio, a program that captures with satire and surreal fantasy the cultural and political cross-currents of the San Diego-Tijuana border communities. For the program’s first local broadcast, at 7:30 p.m. May 19 on KPBS-FM, Sushi will hold a reception and discussion by its co-creators, Guillermo Gomez-Pena and David Schein. “Border-X-Frontera” is a joint project of Sushi and the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art.

On May 29 and 30, Neofest closes with San Diego’s favorite ensemble of statuesque performers, the Big Ladies. In “Jackie and the Dragon Ladies,” Marta Keeney-Jiacoletti, Patricia Sandback and Ellen Segal satirize those idols of the paparazzi and gossip sheets: Jacqueline Onassis, Imelda Marcos and Michele Duvalier.

If Sushi’s fare has shocked or enraged some followers, the negative response has been surprisingly minuscule. “In seven years, I’ve received only three letters of outrage from Sushi patrons,” Schuette said.

For a moment, the otherwise buoyant impresario appeared almost disappointed.