As opening night for HereAfterHere approached last September, choreographer Tandy Beal and her composer and husband, Jon Scoville, were prepared for the worst. “We thought we’d have 25 people in the audience!” Beal says, laughing.
Instead, their multimedia production about the afterlife—a mélange of dance, soundscapes, film, magic act and humor—sold out three performances, raised $5,000 for Hospice of Santa Cruz and got people talking about what Beal calls “the last taboo.”
“We realized we struck a nerve,” she says. “There are 77 million Baby Boomers right now, and we’re all looking at this issue. So this is kind of an amazing group meditation, in a way, using the metaphor of art so that nobody’s excluded.”
The production is extravagantly spread across multiple media. There is Beal’s hand-selected cadre of dancers, a mix of ages, ethnic backgrounds and body types, all moving to the choreographer’s signature mix of dynamism and grace. Scoville’s intense electronic music—sometimes ethereal, sometimes brooding—is a constant throughout. Actors, including Beal herself, and a magician appear onstage and engage in darkly humorous repartee. Haunting film clips by Denise Gallent alternate with video interviews about what happens after we die (once again this year, a mobile studio parked outside the theater will offer attendees the chance to philosophize on camera and perhaps wind up onscreen in the theater). And for those who respond best to listening to people talk, the Saturday performance is preceded by a 3pm symposium with Rabbi Paula Marcus, Rev. Dave Grishaw-Jones and other writers and thinkers called “Pondering the Imponderables.”
Beal says the mix offers audiences different ways to tune in. “On a complex subject you need to have it running on different sensory channels. So it moves from text to pure movement to visuals to humor,” she says. “Humor’s another channel. Sometimes humor takes you into something that seriousness can’t. It relaxes your mind.”
A few things will change this year. The company was beset by two injuries and a pregnancy, so there will be personnel changes among the dancers. The cell phone number exchange at intermission—which, to Beal’s delight, reportedly resulted in some nascent friendships—will nevertheless be laid to rest. And a new magician, Calvin Ku, will join the cast in a crucial role.
“That was the central metaphor to me: could we look at this in a state of wonder the way we look at magicians—things appear and disappear?” Beal says. “The dying part is more charged because it’s about loss. But there could be an aspect of wonder and not just sorrow. This world is so extraordinary that chances are whatever happens next—whether infinite blackness or whatever else—it’s going to be extraordinary.”
HEREAFTERHERE: A SELF-GUIDED TOUR OF ETERNITY runs Fri-Sun, Sept. 9-11, 7:30pm (Fri-Sat) and 3pm (Sun) at Cabrillo Crocker Theater, 6500 Soquel Dr., Aptos. Tickets $13-35 at santacruztickets.com or 831.420.5260.
