In a place like Tampa Bay, it’s easy for ‘edgy’ shows and performances to be self-defeating exercises in defiance. Some parts of local subculture feel like a Marilyn Manson concert transplanted from 1996, its main purpose to shock the squares. So it’s great to see something like SexXxDreams, a multimedia art/dance/music/theatre experience that focuses on a controversial topic, but downplays protest in favor of artistic ambition. SexXxDreams feels like it’s made to entertain the people actually attending, not to scandalize the bible-thumper around the corner.
That’s mostly down to a heady mixture of high concepts. SexXxDreams will be housed in St. Pete’s Station Number 3, the flexible space that has recently hosted solid popup art shows like last year’s Abnormality. And there will be plenty of sex-themed local and regional art on the walls, along with stage performances from burlesque performers including Vita DeVoid. But despite the themes of voyeurism, SexXxDreams’ real goal is to pull you out of reflective reverie and into experience, with an interactive, immersive dance-theatre piece that will unpredictably circulate through the space.
SexXxDreams’ dances are choreographed by Jason Harrington, and mix ballet with a hint of modernist expressionism in an interlocking series of hardcore vignettes. Scenes like a bedroom dream-sequence foursome will play out on a timetable set by the moody soundtrack, unfolding around and through the audience. Each room of the Station will be a specific scene – for instance, the Station’s crumbling concrete bathroom will be transformed into a steam-filled bathhouse for a particularly rough encounter (one longs to know what the firemen who used to work here would think of all this). There will also be audience participation pieces, with willing souls dragged under bedsheets and around corners to get one-on-one readings and performances.
Most impressive of all, the big and little pieces meld together to tell one big story. Organizers Coco and Homo (a.k.a. Zachary Hines and Colleen Cherry) cite as their main influence the New York mainstay Sleep No More, an epically immersive take on Hamlet in which audience members wander a mansion full of spontaneous performances that tell a slightly different version of the tale depending on each observer’s unique path. Likewise, in SexXxDreams, Homo says, “you can follow each performer and learn their narrative” over the course of the night.
From the ballet-inspired dance to the decrepit art deco of the building, the aesthetic of SexXxDreams is decadent and dangerous, but also classy. “What we’re going for is kind of haute couture,” says Hines, citing Weimar-era cabaret as another big influence. The mix of high and low will be on full display in the open dressing room, where dancers will fling underthings in real time as audience members amble through (or, if they dare, peek behind the changing screens through a peephole).
Anyone who needs a break from the action can retire to the performance area out back. “There are no safewords at this show,” says Hines, “but this is a safe space.” Coco and Homo will also be there, putting on a version of the kitschy vaudeville revue they’ve been honing for years. They’re young to be pulling off this sort of ambitious multimedia event, having graduated from the University of Tampa in only 2011. Choreographer Harrington and art director Laura Spencer are equally fresh-faced (if not clean-minded).
The community engagement and organizational zeal behind the whole thing is striking. The organizers raised more than $3,000 from a variety of donors on Indiegogo, and did plenty of boundary-pushing marketing. Take for instance the enigmatic cards they’ve distributed to bars around town. With little more than a phone number and “Sexxxdreams” printed on them, the cards look like they’re pointing callers to a chat line or escort service — but in fact, the breadcrumb trail ends at a "confession line," where callers can anonymously contribute their darkest secrets, to be played back at the show this weekend. And of course they didn’t forget the most important accompaniment to sex – food, to be available from Jimmy’s Meatballs (ahem).
The ambition and scope of the whole thing should add up to something unique, whether you count yourself among the ranks of sexual deviance or not. “This is not another art party,” says Hines. “It’s an environmental experience.”
Two performances: Fri., March 28, 8 p.m. -midnight; Sat., March 29, 8 p.m.-midnight. Station Number 3, 2701 Fifth Ave. S., St. Petersburg. sexxxdreams.com.
