When you’re all the way up in the rafters, it’s hard to get the show you deserve. From afar, the most grandiose of onstage gesticulations is muted; the most melodic of voices rendered tinny. Thus, a good stage performer hyperbolizes the body and cuts their words to appear bigger, clearer. A great stage performer becomes bigger than themselves, bloating, filling the whole room with their will, both on and off stage.

It’s clear that Nicolette Norgaard and Sara Silva– alias dance arts center– understand what it takes to be great. The LA-based duo, both of whom are working actresses, unsurprisingly identify as “former drama geeks-turned club freaks.” Perhaps, though, the two aren’t so far away from the former part: Norgaard has produced and starred in her own indie film, The Brink Of, and Silva is playing a leading role in new Amazon Prime series spin-off of Cruel Intentions. Friends since theater school, the two are firmly situating themselves in the canon of “Broadway Sleaze,” and prove so in their new single and music video: “actress.” 

With grimy production that lands comfortably alongside this summer’s late-night-club-binge-core, overscored by boisterous, catchy vocals, “actress” blisters and bursts. Norgaard and Silva elocute desire, hypocrisy, and the feverish in-between while making it known to everyone in their metaphorical audience– even those in the pesky, faraway rafters, that they’re here to be noticed, and you're here to watch them. 

You can see dance art center at Echo Park Rising this Saturday at The Echo / Echoplex.