Kelly's Heroes

John Kelly, it seems, is always pulling off some kind of high-wire act. His elegant features and fluidity of movement make him a classic ve hicle for a vast array of emotions and styles. The adorably pinched mouth can easily yield to a grimace; his jaunty gait can quickly become a menacing race against time. Light Shall Lift Them, his latest project, playing November 10 through 13 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's "Next Wave Festival," is typical, calling upon different media and the artist's diverse talents to sew up a narrative about French artist and poet Jean Cocteau and Texasborn trapeze artist Barbette (a.k.a. Vander Clyde).

A two-time Obie and Bessie winner, Kelly hails from Jersey City—not exactly a breeding ground for daring young performance artists. "It was a real challenge to have been bom there," he laughs. "The only good thing was it was close to New York." Once in the big city, Kelly quickly became involved in painting, dance, and all the high arts, including performing at the Anvil, a Greenwich Village bar, as Maria Callas in 1977. Drag for him (he is best known for his guise as the stately diva "Dagmar Onassis") was a way of "getting out a lot of rage. . .It was the most extreme, fucked-up thing I could think of doing."

Jean Cocteau's own extremism, Kelly says, made him an interesting icon: "I always felt a connection with the fact that Cocteau did different things." Perhaps what Cocteau wrote about Barbette applies to Kelly as well: "As soon as he appears, he throws his magic dust in our eyes. He moves in silence. He is one of those statues that move."

MICHAEL MUSTO