Laurie Anderson brings 'Language of the Future' to Princeton

Laurie Anderson - calling from the Philharmonie de Paris, scoping it out for a show - is balancing many things. That balancing act will be on display in her Language of the Future show at Princeton's McCarter Theatre on Friday evening.

Everything this pioneering performance artist/electronic music composer does is about the next thing, something in the future. "I don't think I'll ever have a message, or a philosophy," Anderson said. "I don't want to telegraph anything coded."

Her debut directorial full-length film, Heart of a Dog, commissioned by the Franco-German TV network Arte, was supposed to be about a philosophy of life - "until I told them that I didn't have one, repeatedly," she said, laughing. "So that became the film's premise, that back-and-forth." She added that her film touches on loss, a subject she knows well, having lost a beloved dog, as well as her mother, and her husband, rocker Lou Reed.

She calls Language of the Future a series of adventure stories. "There, I put myself in situations where I won't exactly know what to do when I get there or how to get out. . . . I like that level of exploration. It's what I do."

Anderson said she sees what she does as the work of a storyteller, an anthropologist, a journalist. She also called herself a "wire head" as she puttered around the Philharmonie, trying to ascertain the personality of the room ("That's what makes any show interesting to me, beyond the acoustics. Woolly sound can be beautiful").

"My work is made of complicated things and simple things," she said, "and, if there is something at the heart of all that I do, it's that it's good to be free."

Freedom is big for Anderson. Being encumbered by repetition or sameness freaks her out to the point of sleeplessness. She's been building new rigs, with homemade foot pedals and different keyboards for an even more improvisational approach to her music. "That's part of Language, too: departing from all of my previous styles."

She said she's had nightmares about her shows: "I panic about having to say the same thing every night. I think that's why I skip between different shows. Doing exactly the same thing is not good for you."