Photo & Video Gallery: A Closer Look at the BCA's Experimental 'CycSpecific'

CycSpecific is actually very open-ended.

Friday night the BCA opened the doors to Cyclorama for a unique showcase of regionally-based talent. The show, CycSpecific: All Things Transformative, is specially designed for the historic Cyclorama building. The project was launched in response to artists' ongoing requests to have more access to the space, which is normally utilized for a number of large scale events every year.

Although not all facets of the many-dimensioned show were performed Friday (the Taiko Drumming and Spoken Word presentations didn't get underway until Saturday), there was still plenty to see, hear and feel.

Striking installations from artists Peter Hoss and Eli Keszler have been erected closest to the venue's entrance. The size of Hoss's work, in particular, is impressive -- the placement of his found-object sculptures inside a small clubhouse-like structure forces the viewer to look at them in a completely different light. No longer are they just masses of carefully arranged junk; the positioning of them within the clubhouse and the curious shapes they make give them lives of their own.

Each evening opens with a collaborative performance which, taken at face value, is pretty far 'out there.' But one needs to remember that the "Pre-Requiem Collaborative Performance" is a total toss-up... an experiment that will have many successes and failures in the course of each evening's one-hour improvisation.

Friday, the men of the band Neptune navigated around with a pair of thick, criss-crossed wire cables holding them together, each donning a speaker-box-as-back-pack. Using string bows along the wire cable to produce distorted noise through the speaker boxes supplied the soundtrack for some interpretive dancing.

Intermittently, vocalist Noell Dorsey burst into song and Stan Strickland played horns and woodwinds... one thing is for certain, you probably haven't seen anything quite like this before. At least, not in Boston, not in a venue like this. And you can watch excerpts from it in the Pre-Requiem montage video (see photo gallery).

After a short intermission, EgoArt, Inc. presented "Requiem," a one-hour dance-theater performance from the Somerville-based company set to Mozart's music.

The stage for "Requiem" was built with Cyclorama in mind and consists of four long white panels, forming a box around the stage with room for seating along the inner perimeter. As the dance progressed, the panels displayed landscape projections that depicted the changing seasons. The occasional flash of lightening outside lent itself well to the mystique. The "Requiem" montage video offers a healthy sampling of EgoArt's energetic performance.

The evening was capped off with Neptune in concert down in the Black Box Theater. As is the case with their ingenious speaker boxes, Neptune has built its reputation for creating instruments from found objects, trash, discarded machinery, etc. Please see the photo gallery for a closer look at their otherworldly gear!

CycSpecific: All Things Transformative is an experiment on the part of the BCA and celebrates the innovative nature of improvisational performance and mixed-media collaboration. Although perhaps not everyone's cup of tea, Boston's art community ought to show support for the event so the BCA can continue to take chances and push at the envelope of convention.

The gallery portion of the show is free and open to the public. The performances are at specific times and are ticketed. CycSpecific will run through February 27. For more information, click here.

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