FRINGE REVIEW: Private Places

POSTED: Tuesday, September 18, 2012, 9:40 AM

Every year, there's hundreds and hundreds of performances at the Philly Fringe and Live Arts Festival, and unless it's one of the big shows, it's sometimes hard to tell what you're going to get. Here at Critical Mass we're sending writers to as many shows as we possibly can for 75 pocket-sized reviews over the course of the fest. Check back in with us at On The Fringe every day for real talk on what these things actually are!

SHOW: Private Places

GROUP: idiosynCrazy Productions

GENRE: Dance

ATTENDED: Sat., Sept. 15, 8 p.m.

CLOSES: Thu., Sept. 20

BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: Philly-based choreographer Jumatatu Poe debuts this exciting, visceral work that mixes explosiveness and confinement, the effect of exterior on the interior, service and performance, materials and identity. Private Places plays with the stylized movement of the service industry and the high-powered approach of J-Sette, a dance culture developed in black gay clubs with roots in drill team and majorette events of Southern historically black universities. The two share spatial formations that are tight and meticulous, activity that is repeated for accuracy, and routines performed under the surveillance of a captain.

WE THINK: About midway through Private Places, one dancer asks another, “Why would they do something like that?” “I have no idea,” comes the reply. You may find yourself feeling the same way about this show, where performers run through an array of non sequitur situations that include their attempting to organize the audience, zipping a guy up in a suitcase, doing synchronized club moves, and grunting while getting into a scrum and then they get naked; all pretty much for reasons unknown. It’s a conceptual cacophony of ideas that don’t add up. That may well be the point— we all have urges we can’t explain. But this comes off like a primal therapy session. It strains too hard to be deep. Well, the title is accurate; the places this one goes are better kept private.

—Deni Kasrel

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Featuring everything from event roundups to concert reviews and sex talk, City Paper's Critical Mass is a space for off-the-wall coverage of Philly's A&E scene.

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