For nine years, collaborating improvisers Susan Hefner and Michael Evans have developed a subversively zany vocabulary of sound, movement and theater. In Another Happy Accident, they team up with videographer/performer Nelson Simon to create a spoof on injury and aging. Bumbling and awkward, impeded by failures, these irrepressible humans still dream of victorious physical accomplishments. Three live pieces alternating with video arise from piles of debris, found objects, mannequin parts and bandages. Another Happy Accident celebrates the ability to laugh at our limitations and revel in our humanity – our intelligence, imagination, and ingenuity.
Susan Hefner began performing dance improvisation at the age of 16 with Ladonna Smith, Davey Williams and other surrealists in Birmingham, Alabama. She toured worldwide as a soloist with Nikolais Dance Theatre. Her company has received support from the Harkness Foundations for Dance, Dance Ink, Meet the Composer, Inc., Manhattan Community Arts Fund, 2wice Arts Foundation, Alabama State Council on the Arts, the New England Foundation for the Arts, the Vermont Council on the Arts, and Dance Theater Workshop’s Outer/Space Creative Residency. Michael Evans is an improvising drummer/percussionist/thereminist/composer whose work investigates and embraces the collision of sound and theatrics. While his primary instrument is an unconventionally altered drumset, he also works with unusual sound sources including found objects, homemade instruments, the theremin and various digital and homemade analog electronics. He toured worldwide with God is my Co-Pilot, leads the group Swirling Lotus Blossom Bandits, and is a current member of Fulminate Trio with Anders Nilsson and Ken Filano, and EasSide Percussion (ESP) with James Pugliese and Christine Bard. Michael and Susan’s collaborative sound/movement performance work has been previously produced at Roulette, The Chocolate Factory, Improvised and Otherwise, Dixon Place, Music with a View at the Flea Theater, and the Birmingham Improvisation Festival.
Photo by Scott Friedlander.