Arias With A Twist
Due to popular demand, Arias With A Twist, originally scheduled to run through July, is now extended through December. If you really want to see what makes NYC the nation’s cutting edge performance art venue, get yourself over to the newly renovated Here Arts Center at 145 6th Ave. and check out puppet master Basil Twist interacting with drag diva Joey Arias. Mr. Arias is a cross-dressing vocalist best known for reaching Billie Holiday-esque wails and sporting heavy false eyelashes as mistress of ceremonies for Cirque du Soleil’s Zumanity in Vegas. Mr. Twist, an accomplished puppeteer along with his acclaimed technical team, has brought to life a vast troupe of marionettes, some life-sized to back up Arias’s act. This show opens with a spotlight that steals the spotlight, a roving disc of illumination that unpredictably shrinks and expands. An assortment of curtains, part and fall teasingly to uncover Arias, looking like a vintage pin-up model Bettie Page in dominatrix regalia, strapped to a giant, rotating silver wheel and being probed by ghostly aliens. Other scenes include Arias tumbling through space and landing in a rain forest inhabited by a blissful marionette jazz ensemble along with a sinister giant slithering serpent. In another he eats a magic mushroom that takes him straight to hell but along the way encounters cymbal-banging monkeys floating through the air and giant dancing devil puppets. A later scene involves Arias stalking Manhattan as a 50-foot woman. Although all ages will find a lot to appreciate in this production, the striking gender illusion and flailing phalluses will most likely make it off limits for the wee ones among us.
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