In the late aughts and early tens, Cocoon Central Dance Team was everywhere. The psychotropic movement-based comedy troupe, comprised of actors and choreographers Tallie Medel, Sunita Mani, and Eleanore Pienta, were performing their shamanic theatrical stylings across Brooklyn and Queens, everywhere from MoMA PS1 to the beer-stained stages of mid-gentrification Williamsburg. At peak Cocoon fever, the trio performed at the New York Marathon kickoff. And, individually, the dancers swept the filmography of no-budget (you might remember it as “post-mumblecore”) New York independent film. Tallie Medel starred in Dan Sallitt’s memorably sharp and disconcerting The Unspeakable Act (2012), Eleanore Pienta gave a riveting lead performance in Drew Tobia’s heartwarming filth opus See You Next Tuesday (2013), Sunita Mani racked up credits in Madeline’s Madeline (2016) and Broad City (2014 - 2019), and the team appeared together in the grungey ensemble of Nathan Silver’s Stinking Heaven (2015) and Zach Clark’s Little Sister (2016)—all films that made a significant impression on me in a promisingly fertile time to be a broke filmmaker in New York.
I first met Rachel Wolther, the prolific independent producer and no-budget auteur-whisperer responsible for shepherding many of Silver’s films, at a patently evil cursory meeting with an “interactive media” startup that was hoping to ensnare local indie filmmakers to fund and own their ideas in exchange for “clout.” As we exited onto the sidewalk, unsettled and annoyed, Wolther said, “I’m about to start directing a project with Cocoon Central Dance Team and we need a hand. Would you like to help out?” A few weeks later, in January of 2016, I found myself on the newly-opened soundstage in the bottom floor of DCTV’s historic downtown firehouse, helping to assemble one of several surreal and colorful sets.
This project, based on a stage show by Cocoon and written and directed by Wolther and Alex Fischer, was Snowy Bing Bongs Across the North Star Combat Zone, a sort of hallucinogenic space opera intercut with gibberish industry satire and inspiringly off-putting and occasionally flatulent dance performances. Much like Cocoon Central’s stage work, Bing Bongs is difficult to coherently describe. The costumes by the Team and designer Marie MacDougall, the hand-painted backdrops by Meredith Ries, and the stop-motion animation by Lucy Munger were both elaborate and homespun. The overarching narrative framework tells a pantomimed tale of invasive deep space beach balls wreaking havoc on the troupe’s icy home planet. Throughout, we cut to comparatively grounded black-and-white sketches introducing the three performers as they traverse show biz: auditions, audience Q&As, and a final visit to a TRL-like program all become slightly alien and unnerving experiences.
The main trio are eminently watchable. They are rubber-faced and their minds meld in perfect creative sync as they dish out quotable non-sequitors with rapid-fire enthusiasm. A decade later, it’s hard not to notice that every bit part is portrayed by a then-soon-to-be alt-comedy luminary. There’s everyman Joe Pera, dishing out craft services gruel while working on his Austin Powers impression. Julio Torres appears as a pushy audience member. Kate Berlant performs her entire scene on rollerskates. All of this candy-colored anarchy is captured by cinematographer Ashley Connor (The Chair Company, My First Film) with the look of a film that has a budget of about a hundred times larger than this one. Snowy Bing Bongs succeeds, and holds up 10 years later, on the virtue of it being thoroughly one of a kind. It is a bizarro document of unabashed creativity.
Snowy Bing Bongs Across the North Star Combat Zone screens this evening, April 16, at Nitehawk Prospect Park as part of the series “Representation.” Rachel Wolther, Alex H. Fischer, Sunita Mani, Tallie Medel, Eleanore Pienta, and Julio Torres will be in attendance for a Q&A.
