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  • Marina Ancona

At last night's performance of We Put It Together So We Could Take It Apart, the collaboration between musician Khaela Maricich and visual artist Melissa Dyne (AKA the Blow), I was reminded of Reggie Watts' TBA performance at the Someday in 2008, where he collaborated with dancer Amy O'Neal and used a loop pedal to create dizzying, hilarious improvisations.

The Blow's show isn't as funny as Watts' was, or as showily virtuosic, but there's something similar underpinning the two productions: Both are heavily improvised, both explore the limits of collaboration, and both feature performers really trying to take risks in front of a live audience.

The setup for We Put It Together is simple: Maricich stands on a bare stage, a giant triangle projected onto the wall behind her. In the back of the room, Dyne stands at a table, controlling light and sound. Maricich sings songs, and dances to beats laid down by Dyne, and responds to nonverbal cues from Dyne about where to stand or what to do next. She banters a bit with the crowd, frequently returning to questions about authenticity: The idea that the person onstage is different than the person who, say, wrote the songs that she's singing. (She also shakes her butt a lot.) The whole time, she's focused on Dyne, who is helping to guide the show with light and sound cues. Dyne and Maricich are partners, which gives the setup an interesting dynamic, like some intimate communication is happening to which the audience is only sorta privy. The overall effect is of a sort of post-modern cabaret, with Maricich performing a live deconstruction of her role as performer. And if that sounds boring, the songs are actually really great, poppy and dancey while retaining that lyrical specificity that characterizes Maricich's work. Everyone in the "I stopped listening to the Blow after Jona Bechtolt left" camp should probably reconsider that position.

I imagine the show will be different tonight than it was last night, and I imagine it would be more different still in a different venue. I don't think the Winningstand is the best place for this one, in fact; the show's energy flagged toward the end, and I think the big formal theater setting didn't help. I thought this one was fun and engaging, though I talked to a few people after the show who were aggravated by the apparent lack of structure.

There's one more performance tonight at the Winningstad at 8:30 pm—tickets here