Quantum3's Light Dance; 63OCPBMF Probes Oppenheimer; Wesley Willis' Harmony Joyride; Mini-Blurbs

If you're looking for something Blue Man Group-like this week but don't want to spend $55, check out the performance piece Quantum3. It doesn't just have dancers, live singing, deejaying and a backing video screen; it has the expertise of lighting designer Frank DenDanto III. He did the lights for Karen Finley's recent Shut Up and Love Me show and an episode of HBO's Reel Sex.

"I'm kind of, very jazzed," Frank says. "There's going to be flashing lights, strobe lights, three-dimensional shapes built out of light... It is in essence an amusement ride. It's not a high art piece."

Frank is part of an artists' collective called AMEYE; his partners are choreographers Mei-Yin Ng and Eyeala from Malaysia and Italy, respectively. They'll join him onstage in black bodysuits to dance to the light, but not at the beginning of the show. They'll bloom.

"There is actually a storyline to this, if for no other purpose than to help us keep our brains in order," Frank explains. "You don't see the dancers until the middle of the piece and then it's peripheral, until the end of the piece when you're seeing actual people. There is a progression from concentrating on the form and function of the light to creating the body out of light to allowing that light to manipulate the body."

There you go. Even if you don't understand it, understand that Quantum3 is bringing a real light show to New York, which probably hasn't been seen since Tool played here last summer. That is, unless you count those lights that shine downtown, where the 9 train used to run.

Quantum3 (that's "cubed," stupid) plays at P.S. 122 (150 1st Ave. at 9th St., 477-5288) this Thursday through Sunday. Showtimes are 8:30 each night and tickets are, once again, $17.

...Another interesting performance piece (I know, I couldn't believe it either) comes in the form of Randy Sharp's play 63OCPBMF, which runs through March as part of the "Axis Company: Shorter Works" series. 63OCPBMF is an onstage interpretation of the mind of atom bomb pioneer Robert Oppenheimer.

"I wanted to write a play about what Oppenheimer might be thinking in the last two minutes of his life," says Sharp, who is the artistic director of the Axis Company, which has been putting on plays for 10 years. "So I created this machine called the CerebraPremort Brain Mapping System, which makes a movie of what a person is thinking of right before they die. I'm interested in any human being who was at the helm of a venture like creating the world's most serious weapon."

Onstage you'll see Oppenheimer himself, two of his Manhattan Project associates and some anthropomorphized atom bombs. Collectively, they'll show how Oppenheimer's loneliness and social ineptitude (he once got locked in an icehouse during summer camp) were ameliorated only by the respect he got helming the Manhattan Project.

63OCPBMF is accompanied by two other short works, I Was a Brain Sucking Zombie and Loading, plus selections from the video Life of Steve. This bill runs at the Axis Theater (1 Sheridan Square, 7th Ave., betw. W. 4th & Washington Sts., 807-9300) Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays through March 30. Tickets are $10.

...And yes, it might technically be a concert, but the Wesley Willis show this Sunday also has that performance art vibe. There's no other way to describe the schizoid showmanship of Mr. Willis, who plays two-minute-fifty-second songs on his tone bank about food, rock 'n' roll and sex with animals.

Wesley Willis came up off the streets of Chicago in the early 90s with his trusty Technics KN 2000 keyboard. As a gigantic black schizophrenic who played tunes with the keyboard set to "demo," he naturally attracted the attention of white folks in Chicago clubs, who booked him to open for the Frogs and Foo Fighters. Those performances piqued the interest of more white folks like Jello Biafra, who put out his album Rush Hour (2000). That, plus the Internet, put Mr. Willis on the radar screens of the college-age white folks who currently comprise his audience.

It should be easy to feel sorry for Wesley Willis?he's the butt of a joke he'll never quite get?but when I tried to interview him I got blown off by the handlers on his 45-foot tour bus. So I guess I have a few things to learn about success, schizophrenia and media relations.

As Mr. Willis says himself, "Rock Saddam Hussein's ass to Russia. Rock 'n' roll will never die. Scream, Dracula, scream. Take me on a harmony joyride. You can't ward my music off." Wesley Willis appears at Brownies (169 Ave. A, betw. 10th & 11th Sts., 420-8392) Sunday at 10:30. Tickets are $10.

...Mini-Blurbs: A Life in the Week of Ned. Occasionally I have to go into Williamsburg to remind myself of what a nightmare it really is. This Friday's foray began with me catching riff rock gods Scissorfight at Northsix (66 N. 6th St., betw. Wythe & Kent Aves., 718-599-5103). The sound system was hollow and the audience was made up of kids from my high school, all growed up, with nose rings. Ick. Scissorfight played well but the support was not there.

On my way out of Northsix I had a nice moment?two young women gave me a flier and told me I should be in their performance art project. (Something about me having my face projected onto a building.) One of the young women then told me her name, and to ask for her by name when I called. Then they both dipped into a neighborhood bar that resembled a chicken coop. (I later lost the number.)

I continued on to Boogaloo (168 Marcy Ave., betw. S. 5th St. & B'way, 718-599-8900), which oozed respectability on paper. It had a great location, right by the J/M/Z, an easy phone number and a fantastic interior. Unfortunately, the people were standoffish and unattractive, a combination perfected by Williamsburgians. The doorman was nice enough to direct me to my next destination, Warsaw (261 Driggs Ave., betw. Eckford & Leonard Sts., 718-387-5252). It was a trek north to this place, the concert hall attached to the Polish National Home, and it wasn't worth it. Warsaw had a crowd of immobile, scary-looking drunks standing around as NYC noise band Blonde Redhead played the same thing over and over. Every remotely cute woman was surrounded by a gaggle of men with rimmed glasses.

I headed back to the chicken coop bar. The girls had left, but the place was actually down to earth and fun. It was the infamous Kokie's Place, a bare-bones bar attached to a mess hall filled with Latino people dancing. At the bar was an albino wearing a plaid beret. Things got interesting from there.