STAGE : Basic Training for Solo Fliers : Scott Kelman returns to his roots, teaching the ways of performance art

Down the block from Fairfax, past sidewalk tables crowded with Sunday brunchers enjoying the warm spring sunshine, past the line of people waiting silently for their weekly “kosher food giveaway,” a group of adventurous strangers has gathered in the back room of the Daniel Saxon Gallery on Beverly Boulevard for a free introductory workshop in performance art, given each month by actor-director-producer-teacher Scott Kelman.

Few of the group--acting teacher Jim Whittle and several of his students; Raquel Salinas, who performs as Frida Kahlo in area high schools; Elaine Swaynson, actress and publicist; Regina Billings, who transcribes phone tapes for “911,” and 10 or so others--have any clue as to where the next three hours will take them. That includes Kelman himself, a man dedicated not just to dramatic verity, but to performance as a exercise in life, a Zen-like “becoming,” in which the process as much as the play, is “the thing.”

Kelman, who founded New York City’s Off-Off Broadway Assn. (which became the now venerable Off-Off Broadway Alliance), continues to cleave to the principles of the new theater that erupted from the ‘60s avant-garde --a delirious low-budget foment of jazz, poetry, new consciousness and the socio-symbology of American folk art. Groups such as the Open Theater, the Living Theater and lesser known congregates of disaffected international youth tore down the conventional theater’s fourth wall and exploded the classic Shakespearean axiom: “To hold a mirror up to nature.” What was happening then on tiny stages in basements, in storefront cafes, in cold water flats was no mirror. It was what was happening.

By the ‘80s, Kelman had been acting, directing and producing in Off-Off venues for almost 20 years. By 1982, Manhattan’s real estate boom and the “me” decade drove him West, where the abundance of space and a “certain kind of innocence” offered more fertile field. He landed in Los Angeles with both feet pumping, a jolt of pure central nervous system stimulation for a theatrical community perpetually cast in the shadow of Hollywood’s glitter. As director of the now defunct Factory Place, Wallenboyd and Boyd Street theaters, Kelman produced hundreds of groundbreaking solo performances. He discovered and produced the Los Angeles Poverty Department, a group of homeless performers thriving to this day, and he still serves on the board of the Homeless Writers’ Coalition. One way or another, in that single decade, Kelman’s performance philosophy found its way into the feel of whatever can now be loosely designated as L.A. performance art.

By 1989, Kelman had lost his final two theaters and his funding. He was in his 50s, weary of the political grant games and the increasingly hostile conditions for small, experimental theater. And he was also growing progressively sicker from a heart condition (which finally led to a quadruple bypass operation in 1990). Now restored to health, Kelman in the ‘90s has reverted to roots, refocusing his energies on teaching workshops and staging small productions in the Saxon gallery under the aegis of his Pipeline production company.

“I find the political consciousness today to be not very high,” Kelman said recently during a coffee break at a cafe near the gallery. “Everybody who is involved in some anti-Establishment stance seems to be coming from a limited, self-interest position rather than a broad, unifying vision that assures an equal opportunity for all the have-nots. So I’ve pulled back. I don’t concern myself with the media, critics, the grant people, just with my work and primary values, with experimenting, playing around and trying to maintain a sense of humor about it all.” A broad smile creases his striking Hebraic cum Indian brave features. Kelman is devoting a good deal of his energy nowadays to his playground/laboratory--the workshops--which continue to attract many of L.A.’s outstanding performance artists, among them John Fleck, Luis Alfaro, Kedric Robin Wolfe and other notables such as John Densmore, former drummer of The Doors.

At this introductory workshop, from which students for the weekly classes will be drawn, the group is plunged immediately into a firsthand experience of the technique Kelman has evolved over 25 years. “If you have a good idea, don’t do it,” Kelman repeatedly exhorts as he leads us through a series of basic exercises. It’s a maxim students of Eastern philosophy would probably have an easier time grasping than do professional actors. He draws an imaginary line across the floor in front of our seats: Whatever part or parts of our bodies cross that line are, by definition, “in performance.” But if we aren’t to act on our own “good ideas,” how can we perform?

Our first exercise, “walking,” seems to be a further conundrum, a mystifying riddle concerning the essential nature of performance. We are to walk naturally in the performance area, attending to three priorities: One, fill any space no one else is filling; two, gradually accelerate our individual walking speeds until the group reaches a collective peak; three, we are to accomplish this in five minutes, but we are not to count time. Above all, if we have any good ideas, “don’t do them.” Next, we “pass” improvised sounds and movements back and forth in a circle with the spontaneous rapidity (or so it seems) of the Lakers with three seconds to go.

The brave among us volunteer for the third exercise, solo performances that consist of hanging out in the performance area for two minutes during which time the performer must look at the audience at least once. Each “actor” does nearly nothing, but to the “audience,” they seem to be bursting with unexpressed stories, emotions and characters--all those good ideas unacted upon. One man has just made a crucial life decision; a woman is consumed with inner tragedy. Next, half the group moves around the performance area until “you stop, then check yourself out and everything around you.” They somehow become part of a play about prisoners and prison guards. Then we springboard wild, rhythmic stream-of-consciousness raps off each other, and threads of dramatic possibilities begin to emerge.

“Essentially, it’s about creating an environment internally and externally in which things are revealed,” Kelman explains. “So we do the exercises which become conjuring devices that reveal feelings, images, etc. Somewhere down the line, you make a choice to go with one of these things which are revealed.” From those tiny, unforced revelations, we are beginning to understand, evolve fully-crafted performance pieces.

Last June, students drawn from Kelman’s regular weekly workshops performed one-person pieces in “Lineup 2.” For “Lineup 2 1/2,” running through April at the Saxon gallery, those pieces have been expanded to include either a second character, a chorus, or a small ensemble. “What’s nice is they don’t know they’re not supposed to be creating their own pieces so soon,” Kelman says with a deep chuckle. This summer, Kelman and two chorus girls will perform in an expanded version of last year’s piece based on Michael Ventura’s article on Las Vegas, which tracks the gambling mecca’s entire history beginning 30,000 years ago. After decades of honing the solo format, Kelman is now working his way back to the ensemble. But the core of his work remains intact.

“Image has reached a point where that’s all people seem to be concerned with,” observes this intrepid explorer of inner links to the outer landscape. “Images have more reality than reality itself. That’s why my work continues to fascinate me because it’s really about getting in touch with reality. One of the most hopeful things about today is I haven’t the slightest idea anymore of what’s going down,” he says with a laugh. “Which means maybe something is coming! Maybe there’s another surprise.”

Next workshop: next Sunday, 11 a.m.-1 p.m. Call (213) 820-5835 for reservations.