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By Charles Lieurance
Senior Reporter
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I he 11th Street Gallery was filled
with Dinosaurs.
Archeological artifacts were
displayed, models of Pterodactyls and
other dinosaurs were made from boxes
and other "found" materials.
Michael Lewis, who wrote the per
formance piece "Dinosaurs," stands.
He tells about a special refrigerator in
from UNL in Integrated Studies in
1974, believes the cool reception to the
performance pieces is not due to the
local area's conventional attitude toward
art.
"People are used to performances,
chairs lined up and faced in one direc
tion, that makes it easier to convince
them to see and listen." Shanks said,
"Performances can be a lot of things
and audiences can be educated."
"Dinosaurs" incorporates choral
poetry in which three different parts
say tnree ainerent tnings at once,
a New Jersey laboratory that contains
the cells of 95 million-year-old orga- reworking word structures and word
nisms. He tells how eventually whole orientations; percussion oriented music
living things can be generated from
these cells.
Lewis informs the audience that the
dinosaurs will be returning, that in 50
years the dinosaurs are coming back.
"Dinosaurs" was performed in the
11th Street Gallery last September by
Lewis, Mark Harper, Nena Shanks and course of a play."
played on brake drums, pony kegs, bass
drum, triangle and copper tubes; cos
tuming and narrative pieces concern
ing the second coming of giant reptiles.
Lewis says he wants his work to
"leap-frog from idea to idea rather than
letting an idea slowly develop in the
Kurt Larsen, who portrayed a Tyranno-
saurus. -
"Dinosaurs," "Birds" by Brian Beez
ley, Susan Langsley, Michael Lewis,
John Moran, Nena Shanks and Michael
Zangari; and "Changing of the Season,"
an opera by John Moran, were the first
pieces of what is called performance
art to be performed in Lincoln.
"I want to orchestrate people's voi
ces instead of instruments," Lewis
said.
Many scenes in "Dinosaurs" merely
involve the saying and repeating of
dinosaur names and the meanings of
the names.
The final scene of the performance
has Harper crucified on a Pterodactyl
Performance art has been popular in , while percussion pounds out intricate
larger cities such as New York, Chicago polyrhythms.
and even Kansas City since the mid- If the piece has a plot at all, it is that
'60s. A mixture of a variety of mediums Harper plays a man who believes that a
including poetry, music, sculpture, dinosaur is growing inside his body, its
painting, costuming, dance and drama form weaving around his bone structure.
and film, performance art was brought
to mainstream attention because of
Laurie Anderson's "United States,"
which received wide coverage in Vanity
Fair, Mademoiselle, Saturday Review
and The Village Voice.
Four of the most energetic young
Lincoln performance artists are Michael
Most of the performance artists
started out concentrating on one art
form. Shanks is a sculptor, Lewis grad
uated from Wesleyan University with a
Bachelor's degree in Art and has exhi
bited paintings and sculptures, Harper
is in a performance art band called
"God" and John Moran considers him-
Lewis, Mark Harper, Nena Shanks and self primarily a musician ana corn
John Moran. Their work represents the poser. Each artist approaches the per
conception of an avant garde artistic formance pieces from his or her artistic
community in Lincoln. Public recep- view.
tion of the performance artists' work "I don't think like a dancer. I don't
has been cool and the 11th Street think like a choreographer. I think like
Gallery, which has acted as a home for a sculptor," Shanks said.
experimental and conceptual arts, has Shanks says she basically "sculpts"
had to overcome tremendous financial her performance pieces with the human
difficulties in order to survive. form as the medium.
Shanks, a sculptor who graduated See POETS on 13
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