By RADINA GIGOVA
Observer Staff
OCT. 4, 2007

The 13th Annual D.C. Improvisation Festival took place in downtown this weekend.

Dancers, actors and musicians were performing on G Street Northwest between Seventh and 12th Streets. The festival was organized by professional artists who gathered to exchange ideas through performances and workshops.

The sidewalk in front of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Library is where Tony Olivares and Diana Sarong were getting ready to perform “The Traveler.”

Two nearly nude figures were standing next to a white bucket and a ball of tulle. The actors looked more like plastic mannequins than real flesh and bones. There wasn’t any music. You could hear only the noise of the street and the voices of people from the public asking each other quietly, “What do you think it means?”

Then suddenly, the actors started moving slowly, and little by little they covered their bodies with the white paint.

“White, alien and deliberate” is how Jason Trimly, who was standing in the public, described what he was seeing.

Across the street, on the corner of 12th and Ninth, the horns of the cars mixed with the sounds of a saxophone.

“Urban Agitation” by Nancy Havlik’s Dance Performance Group had just started. Dancers, dressed in black, climbed down a giant colorful tree and then danced around it.

“I wanted to bring a new energy to this area of the town. I thought it would be interesting to bring music, dancers and energy that was contrasting with the corporate world,” said the choreographer Nancy Havlik.

Half a block down the street, at Flashpoint Gallery, three musicians from Mud Pie were tuning their instruments. The guitars sounded like violins and cellos. Mud Pie’s music was slow and mysterious, like it came from outer space. It was more like an echo of a melody.

Volunteer organizer John Flyn, of Annapolis, Md., was handing out flyers on the street in front of the gallery. He was smiling, waving, checking his phone and constantly looking around to make sure that everything was going smoothly.

He said that his favorite performer was “Fall Girl” Kathryn Williamson. He described the scene she was doing: she was dressed as a secretary wearing very high heels and her “act” was to fall on the street and see what peoples’ reaction would be. Then three undercover photographers were taking pictures of the strangers who were trying to help her get up.

Amanda Abrams, the festival’s organizer and a performer as well, stopped by to check with Flyn if everything was going well. She said she was very excited about the festival.

“I felt I connected with people. It’s so nice to have the air, and the sky, and the light, and the people, I love it,” said Abrams.