[Jandek] Manhattan Thursday

[Scott Bateman]

The Corwood Representative on guitar, with a bassist, drummer and sax player, plus a Jules Feiffer-esque interprtative dancer (the ticket read, "JANDEK...with dance accompaniment by Biba Belle) who sometimes provided wordless vocals. Lyrics were mostly read rather than sung, which made a few of the pieces (all of which clocked in around 15 minutes) sound like Beatnik word jazz. Pretty cool.

Favorite line: "I reject all boats." There was a lot of liquid imagery. It felt like a song-sycle about a tawdry sexual affair. And as Amy Frushour Kelly pointed out to me afterward, no redemption in the end.

Favorite moment: during the second piece, a guy from the audience jumped up on stage and laid down on his back, staring up at the cieling, right at the front center of the stage. For awhile, we thought maybe he was another dancer, but he never moved and was eventually asked to leave the stage. The official dancer had made such good use of his presence (he seemed to be a dance stand-in for the rep himself), we just assumed for awhile he was part of the show.

Fun fact: at the exact same time, elsewhere in the same building, was a live performance/broadcast of This American Life.