Leaving the Atocha Station
“refreshingly poetic in its form and movement” -Dance Matters (review)
Feature by George McCalman, “Observed: A banner month for art, dance and ideas,” SF Chronicle, February 15, 2019
Inspired by Ben Lerner’s acclaimed novel, Leaving the Atocha Station, this new work of experimental dance theater premiered in the Bay Area January 24-27, 2019 at Southern Exposure and in L.A. at Highways Performance Space February 1 & 2.
Pictured here: Wiley Naman Strasser and Christian Burns in rehearsal.
In Lerner's postmodern novel about an artist's search for authenticity, the protagonist poet, crippled by irony and doubt, longs to disappear into numbness. But he secretly believes in the power of art. Mohr's work takes the genre-breaking nature of Lerner's auto-fiction as a jumping off point for hybrid theater: part dance improvisation, part monologue, part hallucinatory testimonial for the role of art in precarious times. Featuring two veteran performers, Christian Burns and Wiley Naman Strasser, each of whom embodies a different aspect of the protagonist's conflicted self.
Video
Leaving the Atocha Station trailer