Love steps into midair

In June, brides usually take center stage. This week, one will literally do so, while shunning the traditional, gift-registry-at-Macy’s, white-veil, walking-down-the-aisle route. In fact, New York-born Nehara Kalev won’t even be wearing a dress -- or shoes for that matter -- when she’s joined in connubial bliss to C. Derrick Jones on Saturday at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre.

What she and her groom will wear are harnesses. The couple, who met as grad students at UCLA in 1998 and later became members of the hyper-physical Diavolo Dance Theater, will say their “I do’s” on scissor-lifts suspended from the Ebell’s 60-foot ceiling in a public ceremony-performance they call “The Wedding Journey: Vows in Midair.”

“Weddings are big productions,” Jones explains, “and we felt if you’re going to produce a wedding and create something as an expression of devotion to each other, this is like killing two birds with one stone.”

The flying imagery courses through the 67-minute intermissionless performance, which forsakes Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March” for an original percussive score by Ry Welch.

With no detail unattended to, even the choice of a cleric is over the top, or at least at the top: Rachel Rosenthal, an ordained minister, friend and former teacher of Jones, will marry the couple from her own perch, before the two exchange rings and leap into their future, hand in hand, from 18 feet in the air.

“This is a piece about relationships, communication, trust and intimacy,” Kalev says. “Even without the actual wedding, this would still be a glimpse into real life.

“It’s our debut collaborative performance,” she adds, “and we’re designing it so someone who doesn’t know us at all can see a well-crafted evening of aerial dance that has a story that also happens to be true.”

Indeed, after the opening 12-minute aerial ballet, there’s a multimedia section called the “legacy” portion, in which slides of their families are shown. There is also a segment dubbed “conflict,” laced more with humor than rancor, in which the duo inventively moves under, over and around a kitchen table.

“As artists,” says Jones, 33, “we want to explore emotional issues common to all spouses. We understand that there are pitfalls with married couples, especially our generation, and we want to make a comment that conflict is a part of relationships.”

At the heart of marriage is family, and though both Jones’ and Kalev’s parents are long divorced, they will not only be in attendance but also will be delivering one-minute texts.

Jones, who was born in Pasadena and raised in Massachusetts, comes from an artistic lineage. His great-uncle, Aaron Douglas, was the noted Harlem Renaissance painter of the 1920s; some of his work will be seen in the “legacy” segment.

Kalev, 31, is the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, and though most of her family lives in Israel, her sister, mother and father will participate in the ceremony portion, in which Rosenthal reads two original monologues.

“Marrying Derrick and Nehara is an honor,” says Rosenthal, who retired from performing several years ago and now spends her time painting and teaching, “but it’s also a hoot. These daring young people are a metaphor for the cream of the new generation: imaginative, fearless and ready to adopt the best of older values, but in a totally contemporary and innovative garb. They fly through the air in more ways than one.”

The couple will be clad in two sets of costumes: deep red, burnt-velvet pants and tops for the aerial portion, and more traditional ivory outfits that will be donned after the leap (with Jones bare-chested at one point), all designed by Wendy Benitez. The harnesses, says Jones, are standard-issue rock-climbing gear.

Another metaphor, perhaps?

“We hold the institution of marriage sacred,” Jones says, “but also realize it’s a legal institution. We don’t want to paint this fairy-tale picture, and we’re wanting to be smart about our relationship and communicate that as well.”

Though it wasn’t necessarily love at first sight, the couple’s relationship deepened as members of Diavolo. “Every company has hookups,” artistic director Jacques Heim says. “In Diavolo, you have to get closer, because you have to catch each other and be there for one another, because of the danger aspect.

“They got closer, and here you get to see part of their life. This man and this woman are going to get married -- in that moment. It’s not reality TV, but it’s a reality performance.”

The couple have put their own money into the production, which they intend to take on tour at some point in an altered version. Unlike traditional weddings, there is no rehearsal dinner, but the 150 family and friends expected at the 1,257-seat theater will go elsewhere for a private reception afterward.

“This is like guerrilla theater,” says Jones, who admits they haven’t yet agreed on a wedding cake and might opt for Hostess cupcakes. “We’re piecing it together as we go along. It’s a grass-roots kind of thing with lots of people helping.”

As for a honeymoon, Jones quips, “It depends on ticket sales. But we might want to do something that doesn’t involve a whole lot of decision-making.”

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‘The Wedding Journey: Vows in Midair’

Who: Nehara Kalev and C. Derrick Jones

Where: Wilshire Ebell Theatre, 4401 W. 8th St., Los Angeles

When: 7 p.m. Saturday

Price: $20 to $45

Info: (323) 939-1128