Tip-off
Second Hand times Hawai'i visits

By Derek Paiva
Advertiser Staff Writer

Oddball modern dance trio The Second Hand will be on O'ahu and the Big Island in February for four performances.

With a stage show blending theater, comedy and balletic acrobatics into intensely collaborative modern dance, The Second Hand members use their bodies and an assortment of costumes, props and food — the menu for local shows includes "hundreds of pounds of rice" — to create performances akin to moving sculpture, albeit mind-challenging, audience-participatory moving sculpture.

The result sounds interesting, though probably not for everyone's taste.

"Velcro," a piece The Second Hand performed on David Letterman's old "Late Night" show, found the trio in black Velcro caps doing a synchronized ballet that involved catching white balls on their heads. A performance called "Slow Waltz With Dogs" features two "Hand" players bedecked with dog ears sniffing about the stage to musical accompaniment, then pretending to urinate on each other.

Formed in 1987, members Greg O'Brien, Andy Horowitz and Paul Gordon — known, respectively, by the aliases "The Guy With No Hair," "The Guy With Long Hair" and "The Other Guy" — took the troupe's name from its penchant for using other people's garbage as costumes and props.

The Second Hand performs at the University of Hawai'i-Hilo Theatre at 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 1; Leeward Community College Theatre at 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 2 and 2 p.m. Feb. 3; and at Brigham Young University-Hawai'i at 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 5.

Advance tickets are $20 general admission, $15 students; and at the door, $25 general admission, $20 students for LCC performances. Buy tickets from the UH Campus Center Ticket Office, or charge by phone at 956-6878.

For BYU ticket information, call 293-3545. For UH-Hilo, call (808) 974-7310.