First, let's get one thing straight: Raj Suresh is only doing his upcoming performance at Crystal Bridges Museum because the staff approved a confetti cannon. Really. That's it.
"None of these people traditionally have this show in their wheelhouse. It's in no one person's ability of things to do because it is so different," the stand-up comedian explains of his performance with local duo Rozenbridge for the museum's Artinfusion series. "It's music and comedy and lighting and sound and confetti and 100 other things. For me, all the work that I've put in ... just felt like one hand fed the other, and it's years and years of work to get these disparate, tiny elements and pull them all together to create something that is greater than the sum of its parts."
FAQ
Artinfusion Presents:
‘Maya: Raj and Rozenbridge’
WHEN — 8 p.m. Sept. 27
WHERE — Crystal Bridges Museum in Bentonville
COST — $15; free for Artinfusion members
INFO — 657-2335, crystalbridges.org
The desire to demonstrate that local artists and performers are capable of creating performance art just as well, if not better, than work produced in metropolitan areas is how the whole show came about. Suresh had invited Rozenbridge to perform as the opener at comedy events in the past and, with the enthusiastic response he witnessed from audiences, started to realize a new kind of crossover could be a viable art form.
"It doesn't matter what the art form is, as long as the energy of the chemistry is right," Suresh observes. And with more than 25 minutes of rehearsal to each minute of performance, the chemistry ought to be just about perfect. "I've been fascinated by the fact that I can't speak music, and they don't do comedy. But somewhere in the middle we're able to bend our genres, to make them align. Because I think they have the same baseline understanding I do -- that in the performing arts, it is less about the literal note and more about the feelings you are able to evoke from your audience.
"It'll push the perceptions of what both of us are capable of," he concludes. "We're going to stretch those bounds and really try to showcase skill and passion and all the other things [we] bring to the table."
-- Jocelyn Murphy
NAN What's Up on 09/23/2018