VDL RESEARCH HOUSE II, Los Angeles, CA, performed January 31, 2015
with Stephen Lichty, Neil Marcus, Daphne Honma

The performance took place during the golden hour in modern architect Richard Neutra’s VDL Research House II. The house was built in 1932, razed in 1963 after a fire and was rebuilt in 1964. The house overlooks Silverlake in Los Angeles.

The audience entered on the ground floor where pianist Daphne Honma performed exercises in whole tones and pentatonic scales. After the audience ascended a staircase to the second floor, Honma flooded the house with sound, playing an impressionist piece by Maurice Ravel, “Jeux d’eau.” On the second floor the audience settled into the living room, where Neil Marcus and Stephen Lichty performed a dance. Marcus and Lichty have both directly experienced dystonia, a neurological disposition that causes involuntary movements, muscle contractions, twisting, repetitive motions, and corresponding mental intensities. The artists poeticized this dystonic noise, redirecting intensities to different parts of their bodies, minds, and at the house itself. This dance was entangled with powerful ambient qualities of the light, space, time, and audience.