Sushi: Still fresh after 28 years

Sushi
Still fresh after 28 years

Sitting at the bottom ledge of the Icon building at Island and 11th Ave. in downtown San Diego, Sushi reopened November 8th with its own "home" space in the prophetic remains of the rein-Carnation Building. For the uninformed, the old Carnation bottling plant, long abandoned, became a beehive for artists' spaces in the 1990s and the better part of the building then claimed by downtown real estate developers for condos.

For over two decades, those "in the know" not to attend Sushi's work was intellectual and cultural decomposition.

Lynn Schuette, Sushi's founder, returned to serve at San Diego's premiere performance art organization as Executive Director to bring the institution from its amorphous semi-dormant state into its concrete setting and return to an eclectic season of programming.

Upon entering Sushi's performance space cement dust greets my nostrils and the sight of poured and cement brick room surrounded by lighting trusses ensconce the square dance floor as does chairs upon which a headset awaited each of us. A loft for the technical center and office quarters unobtrusively overlooks the 50' by 51' performance space that gives lighting designers approximately 14' height throw distance.

Jordan Fuch's "Thicket" consecrated our city's only center devoted to urban arts.

A modern dance composition, lights reveal "Thicket's" dancers in various poses of repose in autumnal colored costumes with a contemporary casual pant and t-shirt design detailed with semi-forms of flora. Nature has come to our urban setting. The figure's pelvic gestures gently reckon their awakening.

The headsets supply "Thicket's" soundscore. We also hear sound of the dancer's real-time movement on the floor and their accelerating breath. Nature's murmurs in various rhythms as growing sonic of white noise reaches crescendo mixed with real-time breathing continues. The white noise resembles the sound of the "universal static electrical storm" or jet engines our ears are accustomed to hearing and contrast the natural acoustics of the outdoors: apocalyptic notions intrude the room.

I find myself free to let my hard to focus concentration flutter about the performance space from dancer to dancer that move in asymmetrical and random patterns. Synchronous elements are not features in the work and this proves a relief to me. Fuch's dance movements facilitate a body's mechanics. The theme continues in the dancer's lifts with no attempt to appear effortless, rather, they work functionally with each other.

Not inclined to observe nature below my shin, I am not predisposed to the dance’s content. Nor am I overly familiar with the vocabulary of contemporary dance.

I will walk away from the work with my own subtle personal impressions without obligation to delineate all that I take-in; rather, report what I can herein, which is meager. Coming up with tidy answers is not necessarily the artist’s mandate nor an observer has well met expectation. The personal and private experience is always stimulated in Sushi’s programming: that I can rely upon.

My mind is more concerned with the space’s architecture, scent, the feel of sitting in an open cool concrete space in which sweating supple bodies move in abstract patterns with sensual embraces and confrontations. The pressure of ‘the literal’ is not hovering over my head in this performance experience.

The space has theatrical potential for epic staging. It is ideal for staging Brecht’s works; moreover, Sushi’s new cavern is suited to present the works of companies like Antenna Theater. Antenna erected and staged an interactive performance installation “Etiquette of the Undercaste” that led “visitors through a maze of thirteen rooms where they experience poverty and powerlessness first hand. Upon entering the installation, the visitor ‘dies’ and is ‘reborn’ into a life characterized from birth by a succession of ever-worsening circumstances, ultimately leading to homelessness.”

Sledgehammer Theatre would be a likely rental for the space had it still a robust attack on its work. Maybe we’ll see them conquering this space in the season’s to come.

No matter who or what groups of artists inhabit Sushi, it will take superior efforts and a large production budget to optimize the space’s potential.

Reprieve is my keyword for the evening's work.

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In attendance was Mr. Larry Oviatt, a 28 year supporter of Sushi, who worked on The Campaign for Sushi Committee dedicated to the institution's reinstallation. Now on the Art Department faculty at Cal-State Northridge, Mr. Oviatt no longer lives in San Diego. Also on the inaugural Board of Directors for Diversionary Theatre, I have never seen an individual consistently dedicated to alternative arts organization prosperity, certainly not in San Diego.

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"Thicket," closed.
Dancers: Toby Billowitz, Jordan Fuchs, Carolyn Hall, Storme Sundberg; Choreography, Jordan Fuchs with dancers; Music and Sound Design, Andy Russ; Costumes Design, Joy Havens; Lighting Design, uncredited.

sushiart.org

Sushi Performance and Visual Art
PO BOX 152761
San Diego, California 92115
619. 235. 8466
619. 235. 8552 fax
info@sushiart.org