ANNIE OKAY (2010)
An original performance theater work, Annie Okay is inspired by the unintentional colonialist subtext in two of America's most beloved musicals, Annie Get Your Gun and The King and I. The piece revisists the musical form to look at what our entertainments say about our struggle with race, identity, colonialist politics, and the American tryst with violence. Poetic, dense, funny and complicated, Annie Okay challenges and surprises audiences as they are led through the Hammer Museum's expansive lobby and marble terraces following a conceptual narrative performed by Los Angeles-based performance artists and actors. The performance moves between abstract theater, comedy and relational components that allow audiences to enter into dialogue drawn from the piece's mix of ragged humor, violence, and sexuality.