Redcat presents Sugar Houses

REDCAT, CalArt’s downtown center for contemporary arts in LA, presents the world premiere of Sugar Houses by renowned Los Angeles-based choreographer Rosanna Gamson of Rosanna Gamson/World Wide. March 25, 2020 to Sunday, March 29, 2020.

Cleverly pulling a deconstructed narrative from Hansel & Gretel and jumpscares from horror movies, Sugar Houses continues Gamson’s kinetic investigation of ferocious and virtuosic physicality, evoking the grotesquery and violence of fairy tales and the primal bond of siblings.

Sugar Houses uses the Grimms’ tale and historical texts wrapped in the devices and structure of the horror genre to expose hidden histories, the real-world dynamics of scapegoating, antisemitism, and the complexity and complicity of looking the other way.

Performed by six singer/dancer/actors, Sugar Houses responds to the everydayness of hate-fueled incidents in the new normal. The performers hauntingly light themselves and each other and scribe chalk drawings, writings, and erasures, transforming REDCAT throughout the performance.

Traditional American songs arranged by Fahad Siadat and Tomasz Krzyzanowski and witches’ spells by famed horror writer Brian Evenson are performed by the performers, with live sonic sampling by Simon Greenberg.

“Sugar Houses takes on the dark themes of the Brothers Grimm’s Hansel and Gretel: guilt and innocence, servitude and incarceration, to expose hidden histories,” says Gamson. “The house is always haunted; childhood and parenthood are the ultimate horror stories. We replicate our relationships and try to ‘solve’ them in the stories we tell over and over. In Sugar Houses, we find survival and redemption in the bond of sibling love,” she adds.

Sugar Houses has been created in collaboration with its performers: Mallory Fabian, Clementine Gamson Levy, Kearian Giertz, Kayla Johnson, Dion Pratt, and Ricco Ross.

Tickets and REDCAT information available here: redcat.org

Image courtesy of REDCAT