REDCAT

"Neo-benshi at its best mashes up subversive written scripts, deft acting, and acrobatic mind-eye coordination."Steve Dickinson, The Poetry Center, San Francisco State University

Poets from Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York gather at REDCAT to offer a fresh take on the Japanese tradition of “benshi”—a writer or actor who provides live narration and commentary alongside silent films. The neo-benshi concept invites writers/performers to choose scenes from well-known narrative features or TV shows, mute the soundtrack, and re-inscribe the familiar images with new meanings. Relying mainly on language and sound, this practice leads to a great variety of interventions that range from hilarious deadpan ventriloquism to more trenchant re-readings of the original material. The artists this evening perform live redubbing of scenes from Rebel Without a Cause (1955), Kiss Me Deadly (1955), Poison (Alfred Hitchcock Presents, 1958), Vive L’Amour (Ai qing wan sui, 1994), Uzumaki (2000), Minority Report (2002) and other works.