The Dada Cabaret is a one-day interdisciplinary and collaborative event that will take place in and around the streets of Downtown Davis on May 16, 2009.

It will begin at 3 PM as a walking tour and scavenger hunt that directs passersby to four different outdoor downtown locations – Davis Commons (1st & E), Mansion Square (2nd & E), Pence Gallery (2nd & D) and the Train Station Plaza (2nd & H).

Performances at these locations will include Dada inspired poetry, musical performance, recitations, live theatre and dance. Adults and children will enjoy participatory art installations that will allow them to create masks, photomontages, sound poetry, manifestos and learn more about the Dada (anti)movement. A cabaret performance inspired by Hugo Ball’s Cabaret Voltaire will begin at 8 PM on the UC Davis campus at a secret location. Clues leading to the secret location will be provided at the afternoon festival and on the event website.

Afternoon Performances include, modern dance performances, a chance puppet play, an improvisational violin and watercolor painting performance, a recitation of Hugo Ball’s Totentanz 1916 with dancers on fitness balls, a dance installation of JessCurtis/Gravity’s Symmetry Project, live music by Miss Lonely Hearts, and a socially minded silent rant. Evening Cabaret Performances include songs from the Dada era, as well as modern takes on nonsense, dances, sound poems and chance surprises. Dada is a cultural movement that began in Zurich, Switzerland during WWI. The movement concentrated its anti-war politic through a rejection of the prevailing standards in art through anti-art cultural works.

The Dada Cabaret is sponsored in part by the City of Davis, the Davis Humanities Institute, and the UC Davis Departments of Studio Art, French, German and Theatre & Dance.

Director and graduating MFA candidate, Hope Mirlis, is a native New Yorker, who spent the past 16 years in Atlanta, GA where she co-founded Synchronicity Performance Group. She is an active stage and commercial actress with credits including Scana Energy, Home Depot and Austin Snack Crackers. Favorite stage roles around Atlanta include Ruth in Anne Frank: Within and Without (Center of Puppetry Arts), Turtle/Bird in A Year with Frog & Toad (Synchronicity), Reggie Fluty in The Laramie Project (Actor’s Express), and Mrs. Shin in Good Person of Szechwan (Theater Emory).