FRI-SAT 7/29-30
Joan Bruemmer and Krista DeNio in Le
Caractère Féminin.
Rob Reger
Sleep tight, make friends with bedbugs.
Aaron Farmer
Join a guided tour of Coit Tower's murals.
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It's an old, familiar premise -- a woman waits alone by the phone on a Friday night, the tragic hum of the television, computer, or refrigerator her only company. Choreographers Joan Bruemmer and Krista DeNio play on the motif of female isolation in their latest production, Le Caractère Féminin, which derives its inspiration from voice mail, computer games, and the muddled terrain of the information superhighway. Combining the myth of prototypical femme fatale Medea with a modern character dubbed Lady Automate, Bruemmer and DeNio play two loners who wield their techno battle-axes in an imaginary game world, in which kung fu standoffs, western gunfights, and electric-chair executions morbidly await them. Bruemmer, artistic director of Marijoh DanzTheatre, and DeNio, a postmodern dancer whose pieces have included multidisciplinary explorations of religion in America, create a dazzling display of comedy and physical theater. It's a dynamic piece that mixes Internet anxiety with the possibility of making novel personal connections via technology.
In August, Le Caractère Fémininmoves on to the International Boulder Film Festival, so be sure to see it at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday at CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission (at Ninth Street), S.F. Tickets are $10-15; call 994-6196 or visit www.counterpulse.org.
-- Nirmala Nataraj
Charred Icons
AfroSolo's debut act
ONGOING 8/1-9/17
Enraged by the genocide and mass rapes in Bosnia and Rwanda in the '90s, sculptor Nena St. Louis began performing atrocities on her own work: She held her delicate figures over the kitchen stove, charring the wood and erasing gender cues, then "mummified" the results with wrapped cloth and dabs of paint. St. Louis' technique, as well as her emotional response to what ails the world, continues with her solo show "...And They Were Fruitful: A Dedication to the African Diaspora." Highlights include Three Elders, in which three 18-inch figures, despite having faces burned beyond recognition, appear to stand watch on the plain, staring out from masklike visages.
Kicking off the 12th annual AfroSolo Arts Festival, a six-week event featuring a variety of African-American artists working in performance and visual art, "Fruitful" opens at 10 a.m. Monday (and continues through Sept. 17) at the Sargent Johnson Gallery, 762 Fulton (at Webster), S.F. Admission is free; call 771-2376 or visit www.afrosolo.org.
-- Michael Leaverton
When You're Strange
I'll see you in my Nightmares
FRI 7/29
Everyone, we're told, has an inner child. Doubtless, some people have innocent little inner tykes with sunny dispositions, but apparently, thousands of rabid fans around the world identify more strongly with a sulky teenage girl possessed of a "bad" attitude and several ill-tempered black cats. She is Emily the Strange, cartoon creation of Oakland artist Rob Reger, who reads this evening from his new book, Emily's Good Nightmares. Case study: In the raven-tressed adolescent's worst dream, everything turns pink.
Reger appears at 7 at the Booksmith, 1644 Haight (at Cole), S.F. Admission is free; call 863-8688 or visit www.booksmith.com.
-- Hiya Swanhuyser
Coit Art
ONGOING
For art lovers, the real vistas at Coit Tower are inside: Impressive frescoes wrap the walls of the lobby. Made in the 1930s by teams of government-funded painters, these images of Depression-era industry bear the stamp of Diego Rivera, with whom many of the artists studied. Guided tours of these murals, as well as a few that aren't accessible to the public, begin at 11 a.m. every Saturday at 1 Telegraph Hill, S.F. Admission is free; call 362-0808.
-- Hiya Swanhuyser
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