‘Tao Soup’ is food for the soul

In 1995, after four heart attacks, performance-art guru Scott Kelman left Los Angeles for Oregon and the next phase of his lifelong experimental quest. In “Tao Soup,” which plays the Electric Lodge in Venice through next Saturday, Kelman shares what he has been doing for a decade, which is considerable.

On its surface, “Tao Soup” is a studio display piece, as much Living Theater pyrotechnics as Eastern metaphysics. Conceived and directed by Kelman in collaboration with the five-member Drunken Monkeys ensemble from his Portland-based Brooklyn Bay space, “Tao Soup” uses multivalent techniques to infiltrate our consciousness.

Soft jazz plays as the artists mingle with the entering audience. After warm-ups, a ritual opening develops. “Soup ... soup,” the Monkeys whisper, tracing seemingly random patterns as they deliver their disclaimer, which begins, “This moment is the only moment and always will be.” As their austere yet tickling fugue becomes an invocation of sacred space, it is hard to disagree.

With trademark deliberation, bebop-derived sound and pinpoint movement, Kelman and company create an event that is both entertaining and penetrating. Using only folding chairs and subtle lighting (designed by Angela Edwards and Joel Shapiro) as decor, essential Tao tenets land with insight and humor as the performers ebb and flow among themselves.

The appealing Angie Lawless takes her paean to patience into the aisle, while Kristy Rose Leech, a ringer for Leslie Caron, emphasizes emptiness-as-all with classical control. The mercurial Marc Otto takes a virtuosic head trip across his fears, overseen by his colleagues as a pungent flock of birds. Melanya Helene, who co-founded Brooklyn Bay with Kelman, brings delicious abandon to her celebration of divine sexuality. Jamie M. Rea’s controlled physicality grows profoundly still as she charts life’s final passage.

Vividly contrasting as individuals, this quintet achieves absolute cohesion, which holds us past those passages where the precocity threatens to become precious. Kelman devotees and novices alike should regard “Tao Soup” as a matchless opportunity for creative spiritual nourishment.

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‘Tao Soup’

Where: Electric Lodge Performance Space, 1416 Electric Ave., Venice

When: 8 tonight, 7 p.m. Sunday; next week: 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday

Ends: Aug. 20

Price: $18

Contact: (310) 823-0710

Running time: 1 hour