PERFORMANCE ART REVIEW : ‘Fluctuations’ in Santa Monica

Just when you thought we were done piddling around with post-modernism, Jacki Apple’s “Fluctuations of the Field” arrives to reassure you that the late ‘70s are alive and kicking on the Westside.

Presented Saturday at the Santa Monica Beach performance platforms as the finale in the Santa Monica Arts Festival series, Apple’s spectacle invoked the specters of Dada, Constructivism and Robert Wilson--proving that traditional performance art is not an oxymoron.

Fortunately, moments of eloquent painterly composition emerged from the retread minimalism: a combination of beauty and vacuousness made to order for the shoreline setting.

A crew of drones in white jumpsuits rotated a huge abstract globe center stage in the sand, while various teams of musicians, dancers, croquet players and sundry oddballs contributed to the controlled chaos.

The 30-plus performers included the laconic recreationalists of the Death Valley Croquet Club, a conga drum ensemble, teams of black-clad, boom-box bearing roller skaters, dancers in white shifts, jumpsuited workpersons, a robed tuba player, a Zen gardener, a turn-of-the-century pastoral woman and others.

Video crews, photographers and Apple herself also traipsed through the action, while the lawn games went on up front and the skaters moved back and forth along the sides. Solo characters went about their tasks: raking the sand, emptying an empty bucket, watering the sculpted croquet pieces.

The events concluded when one of the croquet players lobbed his mallet into the sphere, proclaiming “I hate this game.”