[manhandled] at 82

Charlene Baldridge

Photo by Ken Howard

Get ‘Manhandled’ this Weekend

Choreographer Michael Mizerany, artistic director of Compulsion Dance & Theatre, further explores the realm of [manhandled] in the most titillating evening of dance so far in Diversionary Theatre’s Cabaret Series. But you must hurry to witness it. [Manhandled] plays only through the weekend, with performances tonight at 8, Saturday at 2 and 8, and Sunday at 2 and 7pm at 4545 Park Blvd. www.diversionary.org/manhandles or 619-220-0097. Tickets range from $15-$35, and you know the drill: the neighborhood is filled with restaurants and watering holes, and so you must allow lots of time for parking.

To the art

Viewers who adore the male body are amply rewarded. [manhandled], subtitled a provocative evening of dance, is indeed that, a moving art gallery, especially in the title work, choreographed by Mizerany, with music by Alaskan Tapes and set on dancers Andrew Holmes and Nicholas Strasburg, who is a veritable fountainhead of thwarted desire as the manhandler in question.

Strasburg and Bradley R. Lundberg, as I’ve stated many times over, are my absolute favorite male dancers. Each has pliant qualities of masculinity that may be sprinkled with humor, sensitivity and command as needed. In other words, they express the full spectrum of what it is to be manhandled or to manhandle.

The darker implications of that are breathtaking when called to the fore in Mizerany’s 2015 Man Clan, which pits Strasburg and Lundberg, opposite one another with compelling intensity, juxtaposed the gentler expressions of Martin Anthony Dorado and David Woronovitzky.

The Company
Photos by Sue Brenner

The program features two women. Nikki Dunnan, one of the co-founders of the late Eveoke Dance Theatre, dances opposite Lundberg in his 2015 work Tous les Memes, and the award-winning Brittany Taylor performs Mizerany’s Via Dolorosa, ordinarily performed by a man.

One must extend kudos to lighting designer Curtis Mueller who so beautifully illuminates the entire evening, and to stage manager Jon Huckaby who keeps things moving breathlessly. Or is that just Charlene the voyeur at 82?

A Scene from [manhandled]

According to Mizerany, [manhandled], his Man Dance Series – the larger, five-part, evening-long work – will be complete next August.