Two shows offer interactive theater with no humiliation

Does seeing the term "interactive" in a show description make you want to run for cover? Does it conjure images of being dragged onstage to participate in some comedy bit, attacked in your seat by a zealous clown or subjected to some other form of public humiliation?

The descriptions for two offbeat Capitol Hill shows do bandy about the "I" word. But their producers insist patrons won't be teased, picked on or shoved into the spotlight.

One show asks you to fill out a few forms. Another invites you to sip wine and nosh. Curious yet? Here's more:

"We Are You: A Statistical Musical"

There were a lot of sad fans when the cult poetry-performance troupe Typing Explosion packed away its manual Olivettis after one of the trio's members moved away from Seattle.

Not to worry. Sierra Nelson and Rachel Kessler, the two Seattle-based members of the multimedia group, recently formed a new entity, the Vis-à-Vis Society. Now they've expanded a gambit used in some Typing Explosion shows into a full-length piece based on the audience's (anonymous) answers to a battery of whimsical surveys.

"We think of them as poem-surveys," explained Nelson, who with Typing Explosion created on-the-spot poetry with audience assistance. "During the show we take the results, graph the results, dance the results and sing the results."

Some passages in the piece will be preset pieces. But others will be improvs, informed by "investigations" into human behavior.

"We'll be asking about bad habits, about the syllable or sound that most represents love to you," reveals Nelson.

"And there's sort of a multiple-question survey about coats. We want to examine everyday things usually taken for granted, but which may have an emotional life of their own."

In a sense, Vis-à-Vis is following in the footsteps of scientific researchers and telemarketers. But the sensibility behind "We Are You" is closer to the Dada art happenings of the 1920s, and the "elemental odes" of the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, who wrote verses to such mundane objects as a shaker full of salt and a pair of socks.

Some of the Vis-à-Vis surveys have been compiled in book form. The queries include: "Which activity are you most likely to perform while on the telephone?" and "Which burns brightest on water?" (Possible answers for the latter include "gasoline" and "honeymoon.")

Do typewriters figure in this show? "We thought of using one for percussion. But no, no typewriters," says Nelson.

And how about pressing the audience into service?

"We're not going to put anyone on the spot," she promises. "We like to get everybody involved, but not make anyone feel uncomfortable."

"Inhabit"

In this original dance-performance art piece by noted Seattle choreographer KT Niehoff's group Lingo dance-

theater, the preferred form of interaction will be mingling.

You know — that thing you're supposed to do at a soiree, with a drink in your hand?

Described as "a choreographed party," the Capitol Hill Arts Center event will allow the paying "guests" either to sit or move around the room, watching a quartet of modern dancers from various angles.

Wine and snacks will be served. And rather than shush up, patrons are encouraged to chat among themselves.

According to Lingo managing director Ruth Haney, the show (which was workshopped at Ohio's Oberlin College) is intended to be "a social experience, with feasting and drinking and verbal interaction."

There's also a soundtrack of what Haney calls "ambient electronic party music" (composed by Sarah Murát).

Only 50 people can attend each night of the run, encouraging kibitzing and comfort. And Lingo's Web site describes the happening this way: "Spectacle is shirked for intimacy, while connection trumps conventional performance."

Still can't quite imagine this kind of bash? Maybe you just have to be there.

Misha Berson: mberson@seattletimes.com