DANIEL JOHN KELLEY

This past weekend I went out and saw two excellent performances.

The first was the Vampire Cowboys latest opus Alice in Slasherland, a hilarious mash up of the horror genre from Buffy to The Ring and back again. Alice in Slasherland tells the story of sad and misunderstood teens who, naturally enough, awaken a demon apocalypse. Like you do. The story has nothing to do with Alice in Wonderland, but everything to do with being awesome, including epic fight sequences, serial killers playing air guitar and a stuffed teddy bear battling a demon.

The second was Les Arts Florissants’ double bill of Baroque operas, Dido and Aeneas/Acteon. The first was a little know opera by Charpentier entitled Acteon, which was pretty, if slight. The second opera of the evening was Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas- a true operatic masterpiece for the ages. A tale of true love found, and then tragically lost- plus you get an evil magic sorceress, and then bits of it were funny too. At the forefront of this particular performance was soprano Sonya Yoncheva as Dido- who is a spectacular singing actress, who I hope to see in NYC again very  very soon.

Both performances ended with wild applause, and left me feeling energized and excited. And I wonder, why? How was it that both 300 year old opera and a world premiere of hilarious horror mash up for the stage can make me feel the same way? Is it because I am the biggest nerd there is? Maybe. But it also got me thinking about the people who made these shows.

And I’m going to put it out there: The Vampire Cowboys and Les Arts Florissants are kind of doing the same thing.

So in like 1971, American born musician William Christie (the founder of Les Arts Florissants) left the US to avoid the draft for the Vietnam war, and went to France. There, he became famous for his interpretations of baroque music which, at the time, was not the tre-tre-chique thing it is today. Nobody was really doing it, and if they were, they weren’t doing it well. Now Christie, this guy from Buffalo, was all “All they’re doing is the same old stuff. And there’s all this wonderful music that’s not being heard. I love it. And I think there are other people who will love it.” And so he did this music, founded Les Arts Florissants, because he loved it, and because he thought people would love it. And on Sunday, 30 years after the founding of Les Art Florissants, a sold-out crowd at the BAM Harvey cheered, because they did, in fact, love it.

The Vampire Cowboys, from what I’ve read, started a very similar way. Except no running away to France to avoid the draft. Qui Nguyen and Robert Ross Parker met in college with a similar idea- “All they want us to do is Three Sisters and Shakespeare. But there’s this whole wealth of things that I love besides that- comic books, action, sci-fi, horror movies, all that speak to me much more than old plays about people having feelings in houses. And we love it. And we think there are other people who will love it.” And so they did, they founded the Vampire Cowboys, because they loved it, and they thought people would love it. And on Friday,10 years after the found of Vampire Cowboys, a sold-out at HERE arts cheered because they did, in fact, love it.

This sense of loving care of the work, and loving care and trust of the audiences that have come to love their work is  what I find so thrilling about seeing the work that both these companies do. I will look forward to their next work with equal excitement and anticipation…