Alive from Off Center
An avant-garde omnibus that features works by off-the-wall artists in many different disciplines.
Seasons
1. Short Video Artworks
Air Date: 1985-07-01
In John Sanborn and Kit Fitzgerald’s Ear to the Ground, percussionist David Van Thieghem “plays” the city of New York as he uses everyday objects as instruments. Zbigniew Rybczynski’s The Discreet Charm of the Diplomacy depicts a cocktail party at the White House, where animals are also invited. Ringside by Michael Schwartz showcases a dance by Elizabeth Streb, followed by a futuristic music video for Laurie Anderson’s song “Sharkey’s Day.” William Wegman’s Singing Stomach features a man contorting his torso to look like a face alongside another segment of Wegman teaching a dog how to spell. Lastly, At Battersea Power Station features a performance by Sankai Juku.
2. Video Dance
Air Date: 1985-07-08
This program opens with a piece performed by the dance group "Maasai," which explores an African tribal dance and its variations performed in 1980s London. The second and final segment, "Parafango," is a collaboration between choreographer and dancer Karole Armitage, video artist George Atlas, and musician David Linton that depicts a woman's surrealistic dream about a man she encounters at a party.
3. Smothering Dreams
Air Date: 1985-07-15
Smothering Dreams features an interview with video artist/sculptor Dan Reeves as well as clips from his video piece of the same title. The work juxtaposes footage from combat against shots of everyday children’s play in order to critique America’s fascination with war and violence. In the interview portion of this 1985 episode, Reeves shares his personal experiences of serving as a US marine in Vietnam during the 1960s. Smothering Dreams is dedicated to the soldiers of 3rd Platoon Company A 1st Amtrac Battalion and the North Vietnamese soldiers who died on January 20, 1969, along the Cua Viet River.
4. Comedy Video
Air Date: 1985-07-22
Artists who poke fun at the medium of television are the focus of this 1985 episode. As noted by host Susan Stamberg, Comedy on Video is highly self-reflexive since these artists not only mock commercial television but also educational television, a subgenre in which Alive from Off Center can be included. Segments include Zbigniew Rybczynski’s The Day Before, William Wegman’s Man Ray – Man Ray, “Joan Logue’s TV Commercials for Artists, and Tom Rubnitz and actress Ann Magnuson’s Made for TV.
5. Tongues
Air Date: 1985-07-29
Directed by video artist Shirley Clarke, Tongues (1985) is a collaboration between playwright Sam Shepard and actor Joseph Chaikin. According to Chaikin, Tongues is about “somebody being reborn and reborn again.” In the video, Chaikin performs a monologue that addresses existential concepts such as birth, death, and rebirth in many different voices. At one point, he carries on a dialogue between two people. His performance is punctuated by the sound of percussion instruments and various visual effects. This episode also includes an interview with Clarke about her work and the medium of video by host Susan Stamberg.
6. Summer Dances
Air Date: 1985-08-05
"Summer" is the theme of the dances, which are performed outdoors. Inspired by the teenage life in a working-class neighborhood, the first dance, "You Little Wild Heart" by Marta Renzi, is performed to music by Bruce Springsteen in an actual suburban neighborhood. In the second dance, "District 1" by Rudy Perez, Boston's City Hall Plaza is transformed into a kind of summer playground. In "George's House" by Dan Wagoner, a group of young women play "hide-and-seek" by popping their heads in and out of the doors and windows of a cabin to the rhythm of the country music accompaniment. In "Secret of the Waterfall" by Charles Atlas and Douglas Dunn, performers move to the phrases and words of a poem, which appear on screen as part of the visual composition. The final piece, "From An Island Summer" by Atlas and Karole Armitage, follows a group of dancers through Coney Island from the boardwalk to the amusement park, as passersby react with surprise.
7. A Personal History of the American Theatre
Air Date: 1985-08-12
Spalding Gray discusses his experiences working as a professional theater actor while sitting at a desk or table in the same manner as many of his filmed and theatrically released monologues.
8. Artist's Music Videos
Air Date: 1985-08-19
This program, hosted by Susan Stamberg, showcases alt rock music videos, beginning with "The Dancing Man," in which a recurring song torments a man. The video "The Women's Group" by the British New Wave group "The Flying Lizards" offers a satirical view of a "woman's world" and the "traps" that she faces. "Lake Placid 80" by artist Nam June Paik uses images of Olympic ice skaters as they whirl to the beat of a rock song. In "Record Players" by Christian Marclay, unidentified hands "play" acetate LPs by scratching them. "Once in a Lifetime," a music video by "Talking Heads" band leader David Byrne, is followed by Joan Logue's "TV Commercials for Artists" in which she presents unconventional video portraits of Steve Reich (clapping hands), Nam June Paik (playing a piano in an unorthodox way), and Laurie Anderson (using her head as percussion). The final segment, "Act III", is a piece by John Sanborn and Dean Winkler with music by Philip Glass.
1. Animation, Dance, and Comedy
Air Date: 1986-06-30
Season two of Alive from Off Center begins with engaging segments from 1986 that showcase state-of-the-art video technology, dance, and comedy from the period. John Sanborn and Dean Winkler demonstrate their pyrotechnics in Lumiere. Charles Atlas’s Jump, originally made for French television, is a rhythmic and visually stunning dance cabaret featuring choreography by Phillippe Decouffle with music by the Residents, a San Francisco–based avant-garde art collective. The episode concludes with works that blend performance with social satire: Doug Hall’s These Are the Rules and Teddy Dibble’s The Sound of Defiance.
2. Sister Suzie Cinema
Air Date: 1986-07-07
This program features the broadcast premiere of the "doo-wop" opera "Sister Suzie Cinema," which integrates the "a cappella" singing of the all- male group 14 Karat Soul into a nostalgic salute to the music, movies, and teenagers of the 1950s. The program also includes a discussion of the video with its makers: writer Lee Breuer, composer Bob Telson, and director John Sanborn. The presentation of this video opera followed a successful run at the Public Theater in New York City and on national and international tours.
3. Fire, Light, Sticks, Rotary Action
Air Date: 1986-07-14
Hosted by Susan Stamberg, this program features three pieces by movement artist Michael Moschen and a dance performance by Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane. Moschen performs "Fire" with a pair of burning torches that he moves quickly in circular formations, creating ghostly images of light; in "Light," he holds a crystal ball but never completely encloses it in his hands, which makes it seem to float as he moves around the space with it; and in "Sticks," another highly kinetic piece, Moschen transforms metal poles into moving geometric forms. The dance team of Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane perform "Rotary Action," an athletic piece about their own creative relationship.
4. Computer Animation
Air Date: 1986-07-21
Hosted by Susan Stamberg, this program features works by two video/computer artists: "Mt. Fuji," by the Japanese artist Ko Nakajima, and "Hyster Pulsatu," by the Dutch artist Jaap Drupsteen. Both works offer unusual depictions of landscapes. In "Mt. Fuji," photographic images of the mountain are formed into graphic rectangles, which then become three-dimensional geometric shapes that move about the Japanese landscape and interact with nature. In "Hyster Pulsatu," mimes interact with a computer landscape derived from Drupsteen's own musical compositions. Brightly colored shapes pulsate to spare electronic music as human performers travel by train, by foot, and by sea through a computer-generated environment.
5. The World of Photography
Air Date: 1986-07-28
This episode contains a parody of a "how-to" instructional video about photography starring noted photographers William Wegman and Michael Smith. Host Susan Stamberg introduces the video as a "spoof on America's obsession with instant self-transformation." The video itself mixes actual advice on successful photography with a more lighthearted take on the art form. The film unfolds over the course of ten major rules. Wegman outlines each of the rules to Smith, who is following Wegman around to determine whether Smith has an aptitude for photography. Through a series of skits, Wegman instructs photographers to follow the rules, which include keeping a darkroom locked, looking good, using model release forms, being creative, and saving receipts. Wegman also takes his new charge on a tour of the studio, demonstrating what a darkroom looks like and how an equipment cage works.
6. Video Theater and Dance
Air Date: 1986-08-04
In this program, hosted by Susan Stamberg, three dances created especially for performance on television -- two from America and one from France -- are enhanced by computer technology, graphic design, and special camera effects. "Visual Shuffle" uses computer designs to visually transform the space and the movement of the dancers; "Fractured Variations" relies on camera techniques to emphasize how the dancers' move together and alone through realistic space; and "Rude Raid" creates a futuristic vision of man's primitive need for warfare and its horrific outcome through the use of graphic designs, camera tricks, and costumes.
7. Three Choreographers
Air Date: 1986-08-11
Hosted by Susan Stamberg, the program features dance pieces by Charles Moulton, David Parsons, Trisha Brown, and Skip Blumberg. "Nine Person Precision Ball Passing," choreographed by Charles Moulton, involves three rows of three dancers each, passing balls to each other in quick, rhythmic formations that form increasingly intricate patterns. In "Caught," a stark, solo piece by David Parsons, filmed in black-and-white, the dancer's movements are captured in an intense strobe flash. In the third piece, "Accumulation With Talking Plus Watermotor," filmed by Jonathan Demme, choreographer Trisha Brown performs a dance while talking about its evolution since 1971. In the final piece, "Towards A Minimal Choreography" by video artist Skip Blumberg (shown after the program's closing credits), shots of a skater moving back and forth across the ice at a distance are intercut with closeups of his skates in motion.
8. Young Video Artists
Air Date: 1986-08-18
In "The Nose Knows," Teddy Dibble sniffs several microphones, selects one, and mouths the words to an instrumental of "The Girl from Ipanema"; in "A Scar-y Story," he incredulously describes a strange condition afflicting his face, as bandages accumulate on it; and in "The Sound of Music," he sits alone at a desk, answers a phone, and repeatedly puts the caller on hold. In the Yonemotos' "Vault," a florid, melodramatic send-up of television and film cliches, a young couple plays out their romance in a mixture of Bergmanesque flashbacks and soap opera parodies. In "Perfect Leader" by Max Almy, a man is manipulated via a computer program into the ideal politician for the modern media age. In the final piece, "From Hippie to Yuppie" by Ben Bergery, a series of paired phrases appear on screen in colourful graffiti, reflecting the life journey of sixties generation.
9. Choreography by David Gordon
Air Date: 1986-08-25
This program features three works by dancer and choreographer David Gordon. The first, entitled "Dorothy and Eileen," combines dance with storytelling: two women share stories about their relationships with their mothers while dancing. The second piece, "Close-Up," is an intimate male-female duo danced in silence. The program concludes with "Panel," in which Gordon himself portrays several panelists who engage in a mock debate about his work.
10. What You Mean We?
Air Date: 1986-09-01
his program features two video works by performance artist Laurie Anderson. The first, "Late Show" (an excerpt from her film "Home of the Brave"), is a music video of one of her songs. The second, "What You Mean We?," is a fantasy in which Anderson creates a clone of herself so that she cope with her busy schedule. As she is interviewed by a talk show host (played by Spalding Gray, off-screen), she introduces the clone (who is male), explains the reasons for his existence, and describes her relationship with him. The clone later composes a song in Anderson's place while she relaxes, and he begins work on his own project -- a film script. Scenes from the "film" are shown; Anderson gives the clone her opinion of it, and suggests that he work instead on a film about "two guys on the road." Scenes from the new "film" are shown. Later, the clone appears on the same talk show that Anderson had appeared on earlier and introduces his own clone -- played by Anderson.
1. As Seen on TV
Air Date: 1987-07-13
Hosted by Laurie Anderson and her male double, a computer-generated clone, this program features comic artist Bill Irwin. Trying to find a calm oasis at a tense audition, Irwin wanders into an empty rehearsal space and becomes tangled in the cords and wires of a camera and video monitor. Plunged into a modernist nightmare, he becomes trapped in the television in a kaleidoscopic, channel-hopping odyssey. While trying to escape his electronic prison, he enters the action of a soap opera, takes center stage with a Joffrey ballerina, comes face to face with Sesame Street Muppets Bert and Ernie, bumps and grinds in an MTV video, and weaves in and out of the colored test pattern.
2. Funhouse
Air Date: 1987-08-14
An avant-garde omnibus that features works by off-the-wall artists in many different disciplines.
3. Women of the Calabash
Air Date: 1987-09-19
This energetic 1987 program features the Women of the Calabash, an all-female percussion and vocal ensemble who perform with calabashes. Reviving traditional African rhythms infused with contemporary Latin American, Caribbean, and African American sounds, the group creates a blend of melodic harmonies to express the beauty of a rich and vital cultural heritage. Skip Blumberg, an early video artist, directed this episode that includes short dance pieces by choreographers whose performances take place in unusual environments: Pooh Kaye and Elizabeth Ross Wingate’s Sticks on the Move and Dee McCandless and Gene Menger’s Aquamirabilis.
1. Men Die Sooner
Air Date: 1988-07-31
An avant-garde omnibus that features works by off-the-wall artists in many different disciplines.
1. Postcards
Air Date: 1990-09-13
An avant-garde omnibus that features works by off-the-wall artists in many different disciplines.
2. Road
Air Date: 1990-09-13
A bleak portrait of life in a Lancashire town in 1980's Thatcher era Britain.
1. Words in Your Face
Air Date: 1991-07-12
An avant-garde omnibus that features works by off-the-wall artists in many different disciplines.
2. Dances in Exile
Air Date: 1991-09-02
An avant-garde omnibus that features works by off-the-wall artists in many different disciplines.
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Rating
8.0/10
Release Date
1985-07-01
Episodes
26 (11 seasons)
Status
Returning Series
Cast
Videos
Production Companies
KTCA Minneapolis