ART PERFORMANCE BLENDS STARK LOOK AT ABUSE, HOPE FOR HEALING.

Byline: P. Catherine Shanks Community Columnist

``Broken Glass, Shattered Lives,'' a new multimedia performance piece exploring domestic violence and abuse issues though music, dance and projected images opens Friday at the Edwin Janss Jr. Arts Council Center in Thousand Oaks.

Patricia Marsac and Siana-Lea Valencia Gildard of Breathing Fire Productions wrote and directed the art piece.

``By talking about it, we feel we're opening up the silence,'' Gildard said.

She said that the metaphorical title of the work relates to the invasive nature of abuse and a breaking of something that could have been whole. Citing a 1997 statistic showing that more than 2.1 million American women suffered injuries from domestic violence that year, Gildard said that the true silent sufferers are the thousands of women who are not included in that number.

``There are people attached to those statistics,'' Gildard said.

She said that she and Marsac are determined to make a difference in the lives of the silent female masses.

``If we reach one person, and they have a larger affect, we will have done some good,'' Gildard said. ``It would be wonderful to know that we have changed someone's life.''

While attending California Lutheran University together, Marsac and Gildard found they shared an interest in a many social issues. In 1994, while still in school, they collaborated on ``Generation X'' - an upfront treatment of the no-name segment of the young adult population, their challenges and their concerns.

The two collaborators premiered their second full production in 1996. The feminist show titled ``I'm Just a Girl'' involved a blunt discussion of women's issues. When Marsac and Gildard graduated, they decided to continue the work they had begun.

``Broken Glass, Shattered Lives'' is an in-depth experimental journey intended to reach into the hearts of the audience. Incorporating paintings and sketches, collages of household debris, stark projected images, detailing the subtext of a relationship in crisis, poignant songs, percussion and dance, the performance piece approaches its subject from a variety of directions.

``In the beginning, it's dark, in that we are attempting to describe the silence and illustrate it with the choreography,'' said Marsac, who choreographed the piece, created the artwork and wrote one of the songs. She said that her creative expression grew out of painful experiences in her own life and the lives of others around her.

Gildard said the words and pictures projected on a screen enhance the understanding of the work and of the issues at hand.

``It's the way our society learned things - by way of flashing images,'' Gildard said. ``It's not to spell it all out.''

Following an emotional outpouring at the onset of the piece, messages of picking up the pieces and finding strength within lead to a hopeful conclusion.

``We've started on a path of opening up the voices,'' Marsac said.

Future plans for Marsac and Gildard and Breathing Fire Productions include a multimedia project having to do with the Holocaust.

The all-female cast of ``Broken Glass, Shattered Lives,'' ranges in age from 11 to 30 years. Brude Bui created the costumes, and Nicholas Lange is responsible for the lighting design. The band Atticus has developed the music for the show, in collaboration with percussionist Matthew Hufschmidt.

THE FACTS

WHAT: ``Broken Glass, Shattered Lives.''

WHERE: The Edwin Janss Jr. Arts Council Center, 482 Greenmeadow Ave.

WHEN: 8 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, Sept. 11 through 26 and Sunday, Sept. 13.

COST: $10 General Admission; $8 for students and seniors.

INFORMATION: [phone].