ALIVE FROM OFF CENTER: AS SEEN ON TV (TV)
Summary
One in this series of arts programs featuring the work of leading avant-garde artists in video, music, dance, theater, and film. Hosted by Laurie Anderson and her male double, a computer-generated clone, this program features comic artist Bill Irwin. Trying to find a calm oasis at a tense audition, Irwin wanders into an empty rehearsal space and becomes tangled in the cords and wires of a camera and video monitor. Plunged into a modernist nightmare, he becomes trapped in the television in a kaleidoscopic, channel-hopping odyssey. While trying to escape his electronic prison, he enters the action of a soap opera, takes center stage with a Joffrey ballerina, comes face to face with Sesame Street Muppets Bert and Ernie, bumps and grinds in an MTV video, and weaves in and out of the colored test pattern.
(Series title varies; as above, 1985-1991; as "Alive TV," 1992 onward.)
Acquisition and cataloging of this program was made possible by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Details
- NETWORK: PBS
- DATE: July 13, 1987
- RUNNING TIME: 0:27:50
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: T:26461
- GENRE: Comedy; Video art
- SUBJECT HEADING: Ballet; Comedy; Music videos; Puppets; TV - Parody; Video art
- SERIES RUN: PBS - TV series, 1985-1996
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- For "Alive From Off Center":
- Susan Dowling … Executive Producer
- John Schott … Producer
- De Michiel, Helen … Associate Producer
- David Byrne … Theme Music by
- Laurie Anderson … Host
- For "Prologue":
- John Schott … Executive Producer
- Hart Perry … Supervising Producer
- Niles Siegel … Producer
- Laurie Anderson … Director, Writer
- For "As Seen On TV":
- Susan Dowling … Executive Producer
- Charles Atlas … Director, Conceived by, Edited by
- Bill Irwin … Conceived by, Cast
- William Whitener … Choreographer, For ballet
- Diane Martel … Choreographer, For "Fire"
- Aram Khatchaturian … Composer
- Lipp and Cohen … Music by
- Ohio Players, The … Music by
- Jim Henson … Guest Artist, Henson Associates
- Frank Oz … Guest Artist, Henson Associates
- Beatriz Rodriquez … Guest Artist, The Joffrey Ballet
- Ashley Wheater … Guest Artist, The Joffrey Ballet
- Anna Levine … Cast
- Martha Roth … Cast
- Marilyn McIntyre … Cast
- W.H. Macy … Cast
- Chee Chee Williams … Cast
- John Erdman … Cast
- Avy Kaufman … Cast
- Lucy Sexton … Cast
- Anne Iobst … Cast
- Boris Policeband … Cast
- Barbara Lipp … Cast
- Cynthia Fribert … Cast