THE SOCK MONKEYS
Unlike most Chicago performance artists, the Sock Monkeys develop their pieces from a movement base. As a result the work tends to be more intuitive, less intellectual, than most of what’s found on the local performance scene. This has its charms, but it can also be frustrating. The group’s often startling images may seem too abstract or esoteric. Sometimes the only way to accept the work is to believe that it has its own internal logic.
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The Sock Monkeys’ most recent performances, at the Dance Center of Columbia College, featured four pieces that underscore the group’s strengths and weaknesses, its diversity, talent, and ambitions. The performances also showcased an admirable collaborative spirit. Besides the group’s members–Lydia Charaf, Bryan Saner, Kay Wendt LaSota, and Jeanette Welp–the program featured various other artists, including the remarkable Winston Damon. A musician with a predilection for odd instruments–and noninstruments–Damon is inventive, funny, and wonderfully understated.
Eventually it becomes apparent that Charaf and Damon are recording the piece with each repetition, layering one version over another to create a dense, scratchy final product. Although the aim may have been to demystify the creative process, the presentation seems a tad self-conscious. It amuses, but nothing more, and that’s a shame–it came right smack in the middle of the evening, when the program should have been at its strongest.
