DANCE REVIEW: New Edge Mix, Nov. 7

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DANCE REVIEW: New Edge Mix, Nov. 7

POSTED: Wednesday, November 11, 2009, 7:30 PM

Filed Under: Arts Dance

Photo | Lauren Seibert

Mo and Moe's Lucid Dance Dream

If there really are lines between theater, dance and madness, the Community Education Center's New Edge Mix performance Saturday night just erased them all. Dancing purple bunnies, French soundtracks and maniacal housewives came together in a show that left me wondering if I hadn't just experienced some bizarre lucid daydream ' an appropriate sentiment, considering one of the performances was titled Mo and Moe's Lucid Dance Dream. With its seats tucked up close to the small performance area, the CEC is a space that plunks the audience right in the middle of the action. And when that action involves bunnies with Michael Jackson masks spinning eerily around the floor (I'll get to that), it can get pretty trippy.

Photo | Lauren Seibert

LA BELLE PENDUE or,
Another Type of Flying

LA BELLE PENDUE or, Another Type of Flying opened the show, with the theatrical Mary Tuomanen alternately performing acrobatic feats on the long red cloth hanging from the ceiling, singing and chanting in French, and verbalizing the various parts of story about friendship and madness. Tuomanen was 'Mary Kay,' an 18-year-old girl off to drama class at school, where she met the wild Clarissa. Clarissa took Mary Kay on 'crazy runs' through the woods and other various adventures, until insanity slowly overtook her. The tale ended with the quiet sadness of things left too late, friendship lost, and Tuomanen clinging to the red rope in a mimicry of death.

Hot Flashes, performed by Jennifer Morley and Shannon Murphy, alternated between fast and slow tempos, with a hysterical edge. Set to music and radio commercials from the '50s, with Morley and Murphy bedecked in flowered aprons and bright red lipstick, the dance explored the pretensions of domestic life. At times, the two women moved like puppets or mechanical dolls performing their tasks of cleaning house; at other times, they would suddenly burst into explosive, impulsive movements accompanied by crazed laughter. It would seem that domestic life was a bit constraining. Think 'Stepford Wives' set to dance and you'll get the idea.

Photo | Lauren Seibert

Hot Flashes

The Walrus and the Camel didn't really make any sense to me, but it was amusing to watch the interactions among the three characters performed by Brandon Beston, Lee Fogel and Kate Speer. A girl in rain boots, a man in a trench coat and a woman in a pink skirt played strangers who randomly meet and develop relationships, all without words. Their motions were stumbling and wobbly with spontaneous bursts of energy, as if they were just discovering that they could move. Dance intentionally made awkward ' that was a new one for me.

With the next piece, Mo and Moe's Lucid Dance Dream by Eleanor Goudie-Averill, Tim Popp, Daniele Strawmyre and Alie Vidich, I gave up on trying to make sense of anything that night. Two nerdy-looking characters, Mo and Moe, seemed to be having a bizarre daydream about dancing bunnies. They fell asleep after stacking little stuffed bunnies onto shelves, and suddenly human-size purple rabbits were dancing eerily around. Really. But they got us laughing. (I may have stopped laughing when one rabbit came out wearing a Michael Jackson mask, but that's because I was scared.)

The night ended with obsession(2) the T, performed by Danielle Currica, Kathleen Glynn, Claudia Van Poperingen and Ami Dowden-Fant. Three girls came out in matching sunglasses and stylish pea coats, moving seamlessly together in the most graceful and creative choreography seen so far, only to ultimately cast away their outer accessories. The fourth dancer performed solo, acting out her obsession with a bright red coat through movements both rapturous and languid. It was a beautiful dance, leaving us pondering our compulsions for fashion and the material.

With that, the show was over. I caught myself shaking my head as if to clear away the fog of a really strange dream, only to remember that I had never been asleep.

Posted by Lauren Seibert @ 7:30 PM Permalink | Post a comment

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