PERFORMANCE ART : ‘Rocky Shore’ Hits the Beach

Quirky is the word for Tobi Redlich’s performance piece, “Rocky Shore,� which unrolled Saturday afternoon at Santa Monica Beach in a co-production of the Santa Monica Arts Commission and the Cactus Foundation.

Dressed in spanking white sportswear, Redlich raked the sand while expounding on her “Big Rock Theory.� If you’re walking down the street, see, and a big rock falls on you, fear not. It has happened for a reason.

Accompanied by recorded ocean sounds, Redlich stood on one of the twin concrete “performance platforms� and gravely assumed pivoting discus-thrower stances (as God?) to heave various-sized rocks and some bouncing painted hunks of plastic foam onto the sand.

She told us how comforting she found the slow rate at which rocks change. Shaking pebbles in a bucket before strewing them about and pouring sand from a watering can, she offered the piquant observation: “Rocks understand sand; it’s their future.�

And then she and the rock rolled and tumbled toward the ocean until they were both out of sight. Wispy and scattershot though it was, the piece nevertheless had a sweet, transparent simplicity.