Tina Gerstler Pushes Herself to the ‘Limit’

The opening salvo of Generator Eight, a two-weekend festival of new dance that begins Thursday at the Los Angeles Theatre Center, is Tina Gerstler’s “City Limit,” a multimedia celebration of Los Angeles: Gerstler performs on roller skates as pages of the Thomas Guide flash on a screen along with photographs of dancers posing with their cars--or, in the case of the lone car-less cast member, with his skateboard.

No stranger to dancing downtown, Gerstler launched her new company, Danceworks, 15 months ago at LACE. But the opportunity to perform at LATC, offered by producer Danielle Shapiro, marks an important step in the career ladder she’s been climbing since her childhood ballet classes in San Diego.

“My teachers told me I’d never make it as a dancer,” she laughed. “They said I had the wrong kind of body.” But her theatrical flair kept her at it, and seems to have won the day. She’s still trying, in a sense, to prove the teachers wrong.

“How dare they put limitations on me, when there’s an obvious place for what I can do?” That place has included, over the past dozen years, a six-year stint with the company of Mary Jane Eisenberg, appearances in the work of Lisbeth Davidow and Jan Munroe, widespread teaching and touring, a little acting and collaborative work with other artists including her sister, poet Amy Gerstler.

“The future of nonprofit art is collaboration--artistically, and sharing resources,” commented Danto Miller, a friend and partner of Gerstler’s in the development of “City Limit.” He supports his creative habit by working with ARTS Inc., a nonprofit management consulting firm.

Gerstler’s first LATC program will include two sections of “The Luna Series,” an ongoing work correlating human relationships with cosmic phenomena. But the evening’s main event hits closer to home.

The six-part “City Limit” uses a vignette format, punctuated by blackouts, to reveal significant and often funny aspects of suburban Los Angeles. Its multiracial cast of nine dancers, supplemented by five “extras” ranging from 2 to 65 years old, presents a slice of life on Venice Beach, a major traffic jam, lost young women in lingerie and other takes on the local experience. An original score will be performed live by Chris Pumphrey & the Pedestrians.

“The opportunity to work in a theater with a different clientele opens up a new opportunity for me,” Gerstler says. “ ‘City Limit’ is designed to appeal to a theater crowd. It has a sense of lightness to it, even within the intensity of the topic. At the moment, I really feel that if there’s going to be a future for dance, it needs to have more depth, a broader appeal, to integrate different forms.”

Miller, a photographer who works in postcard formats, is providing sequenced images familiar to any local denizen: detailed maps, garnished burritos and the ubiquitous catering trucks, nicknamed “roach coaches,” that offer food up around the clock. Amy Gerstler contributed a list of “modern madonnas” (“Our Lady of the Unpaid Anesthesiologist,” “Madonna of Drive-by Shootings”), and composer Pumphrey an original score.

The expenses of mounting the program, in the co-production arrangement with Shapiro and LATC, will outrun its earnings, even if every seat is filled. “The bottom line is that to produce work is expensive. People are not going to hand you things on a platter,” Gerstler says. “Every class I teach, every lecture I do, all that money goes to pay for this event. I chose to do this multimedia piece, even though it’s more expensive. It’s really important to me to broaden the appeal of the company.”

Shapiro, artistic director of the Pacific Dance Ensemble and producer of Generator Eight, has been raising money for months to defray the substantial costs of the project, and has found support from Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department and the National/State/ County Partnership. Her own company, a repertory group that performs commissioned works by a variety of choreographers from across the country, will offer a full evening, including two premieres June 15. One of the new works, “Crow,” will be repeated as part of a sampler evening the following night. Gilberte Meunier, a French choreographer now working locally, choreographed the piece, which has music by Yugoslavian composer Dusan Bogdanovic to be performed live by singer Nmon Ford-Livene and flutist James Newton. “Crow,” based on a cycle of poems by Ted Hughes, includes visual elements by Stephen Freedman.

“It’s been a real learning experience for Danielle, a relative newcomer to Los Angeles, trying to correlate and collate this thing,” observed Gerstler, who assisted Mary Jane Eisenberg with managerial chores while performing in her company.

“Something has to happen here. L.A. can go at the same pace and have a lot of potential, or it can take itself by the hand and actualize that potential. Coming from L.A., it’s up to us. People don’t think there’s dance here, but there is.”

Another Gerstler premiere, “Onomatopoeia,” will appear on the festival’s closing program; it has a new score by composer Brad Dutz. Other choreographers included in the festival are Loretta Livingston, Naomi Goldberg, Martha Kalman, Rene Olivas Gubernick, Rose Polsky, Sarah Elgart, Jennifer Thienes, Young-Ae Park, Fred Strickler, Shel Wagner, Betty Gonzalez Nash and Pat Catterson.

For complete program and ticket information: (213) 627-5599.