The Finnish Screaming Men’s Choir may seem like something out of Spamalot, but it is in fact an actual group of besuited men who shout song lyrics in violent, percussive fashion. They’re part of PERFORMA05, New York’s first biennial of performance art, in a project by Jesper Just, a young Dane known for his short films of surreal, campy exchanges. Here, he’s using technology that lets actors interact with 3-D projections, pairing a holograph of the Choir with a live opera singer. The audience at the Stephan Weiss Studio should not, however, expect rampaging moose or other Pythonesque gambits. As Just says, “It’s a freak show, but not an ironic one.”
Performa05
See performa-arts.org for locations
November 3 through 21.