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Dance
These huge arts festivals can be overwhelming — how to figure out what's worth seeing? CP's sending someone to nearly every event PIFA's putting on over the next month to help you decide, so check back with Critical Mass all month long for comprehensive, ongoing reviews.
SHOW: 1492: Music and Dance From Spain to the Americas
GENRE: Music/dance
GROUP: Latin Fiesta and Concilio
ATTENDED: Thu., April 25, 7 p.m., Suzanne Roberts Theatre
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: Maria del Pico Taylor and international guest artists take you on a time traveling journey inspired by Columbus' arrival in the New World.
WE THINK: Beginning in 9th-century Spain and ending in 19th-century Cuba, 1492 took PIFA's time-travel theme to heart, though the results were muddled. The cast had plenty of accomplished artists – including fiery dancer Liliana Ruiz, singers Vania Taylor Watson and Jorge Maldonado and pianist Maria del Pico Taylor (also the program's artistic director). The performances were earnest and heartfelt. Ruiz is such a force she lifted the vibe whenever she appeared on stage, and a spirited conga line made for a lively finale.
But the production was clearly under-rehearsed and rough around the edges. Various time periods and cultures were presented with little to no context, which made for confusing transitions, as well as a lost opportunity to share the roots of and connections between this multicultural array of artistry.
PREVIOUSLY IN PIFA: Philip Glass + physics = kids show!
These huge arts festivals can be overwhelming — how to figure out what's worth seeing? CP's sending someone to nearly every event PIFA's putting on over the next month to help you decide, so check back with Critical Mass all month long for comprehensive, ongoing reviews.
SHOW: That Time
GENRE: Theater/dance
GROUP: Tongue & Groove, RealLivePeople(in)Motion
ATTENDED: Sat., April 20, 8 p.m., Kimmel Center
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: Tongue & Groove is a critically acclaimed theater ensemble that spontaneously performs unscripted scenes and monologues inspired by personal information anonymously submitted by the audience . . . Especially for PIFA 2013, T&G is collaborating with dance company RealLivePeople(in)Motion, an ensemble that is similarly catalyzed by the audience’s true stories.
WE THINK: Tongue & Groove continues to evolve, tweaking its improv format to fit PIFA's time-machine theme by prompting audience memories about moments in our lives we would like to return to, shared anonymously on Post-it notes stuck to a timeline (write clearly, please!). Mine — the morning of my first wedding in November 1989, to follow my impulse to run away and thus spare myself a year in hell — was not chosen, but audience reactions made clear whose were.
Bobbi Block's talented long-form, realistic improv-ers are smartly teamed with RLPiM, dancers in street clothes who likewise explore real life. Actors dance and dancers act together successfully in the T&G style of creating genuine, rich relationships in an instant and finding humor in human behavior rather than punch lines. Using a variety of formats and styles (monologues, domestic scenes, inter-generational conflicts, instant message exchanges), the hour-long show I witnessed blended stories united by their complex emotional levels: I laughed heartily, yet felt tears rising by the end.
Working against the performers, it must be said, was the ironically named Innovation Studio, which stifles innovation. Whoever chose the high-backed plastic chairs and didn't provide risers apparently never sat in a theater before: in the second of five rows, I couldn't see performers on the floor unless they stood, and I watched through a picket fence of heads. Even the back row of high chairs had trouble, but in the fourth row of normal-height chairs — which would feel close in any of the city's much less expensive but more sensible small theaters — the conditions are miserable. Moreover, shifting for a better view makes the unsteady chairs creak and squeak, producing a steady undercurrent of the-locusts-are-coming sounds. Artists must either build a stage on the beautiful hardwood floor or limit their choices and punish their audiences. How can the Kimmel Center lead us into the future when its designers learned nothing from the past?
PREVIOUSLY IN PIFA: Five too-short plays about the future.
These huge arts festivals can be overwhelming — how to figure out what's worth seeing? CP's sending someone to nearly every event PIFA's putting on over the next month to help you decide, so check back with Critical Mass all month long for comprehensive, ongoing reviews.
SHOW: The Big Bang!
GENRE: Dance
GROUP: Philadanco
ATTENDED: Fri., April 19, 8 p.m., Kimmel Center
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: In this riveting program created just for PIFA, Philadanco celebrates The Big Bang, 13 billions years ago!
WE THINK: Philadanco pulled out the stops for this show, which begins, and ends, with a bang. The bill of fare presents a potpourri of 'Danco's dance styles, in four works that highlight the company's superb technique and demonstrating how its choreography has evolved over the years. It begins with an energetic early work of classic Philadanco style — long, graceful leg and arm extensions coupled with deep, athletic leg work — and ends with a contemplative contemporary dance featuring a bevy of elegant yet physically challenging duets. At the show I saw, throughout the program, people clapped and whupped during the individual pieces; they just couldn’t wait till the work ended to acknowledge an especially impressive feat. And who could blame 'em: this stellar corps delivers heartfelt body and soul for this exhilarating program.
PREVIOUSLY IN PIFA: Dan Deacon is in your iPhone.
These huge arts festivals can be overwhelming — how to figure out what's worth seeing? CP's sending someone to nearly every event PIFA's putting on over the next month to help you decide, so check back with Critical Mass all month long for comprehensive, ongoing reviews.
SHOW: Where Heaven's Dew Divides
GENRE: Dance
GROUP: Germaine Ingram Project
ATTENDED: April 18, 7:30 p.m., Innovation Studio at the Kimmel Center
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: Percussive dancer/choreographer and vocal improviser Germaine Ingram, modern dancer/choreographer Leah Stein and a company of dance and music artists channel key moments and personalities from the history and memory of Philadelphia’s religious life of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
WE THINK: Shows that draw inspiration from social injustice can come off like a lecture performed in a theatrical way. There is so much intent to make a point it's soapbox art. Fortunately, Where Heaven's Dew Divides opts for a more open-ended approach.
That's a neat feat considering the piece gleans inspiration from George Washington's house slaves, African-American religious leaders of the late 1700s, the role of women in the black church movement and Philadelphia's yellow fever epidemic.
All those inspirations are evident in the work, yet the piece is abstract enough that it's not like you're getting hit over the head with all that backstory. Rather, Where Heaven's Dew Divides is a rhythmic ode to the capacity for human expression in dance, music and song. A percussive tap dance is like a conversation between three people. Yet, the whole thing is uplifting. The collective spirit of this first-rate cast flat-out moves you. That's the beauty of well-done art.
PREVIOUSLY IN PIFA: A Zen Buddhist Drumline.
These huge arts festivals can be overwhelming — how to figure out what's worth seeing? CP's sending someone to nearly every event PIFA's putting on over the next month to help you decide, so check back with Critical Mass all month long for comprehensive, ongoing reviews.
SHOW: Animal Animal Mammal Mine
GENRE: Dance/theater
GROUP: Penn Dixie Productions
ATTENDED: Sun., April 14, 8 p.m., Underground Arts
CLOSES: April 20
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: A devised theater piece that grows out of extensive interviews with women who have inherited the technology of the 60s. It weaves these characters together with dance, projections, and the breathtaking hybrid sculptures of Martha Posner.
WE THINK: Writer-director Anisa George concocts a fascinating adventure, based on conversations with women about reproduction that were expansive enough to explore concerns about climate change and the nature of life itself. As with other works of this style (think Pig Iron Theatre Company, New Paradise Laboratories, Applied Mechanics, and anything staged by Mark Lord), we're embraced by a dizzying variety of fascinating images, action, and sounds — most of them showing low-tech innovation, like Martha Posner's wearable sculptures — from an on-stage glacier and menacing animal activists to the giddy thrills of actresses singing while circling the audience on bicycles and discovering their capacity for flight.
Set designer Amy Rubin uses Underground Arts' basement space well, surrounding us and a deep, sea-blue playing area with eerie bare trees. Often funny while also surprisingly moving, Animal Animal Mammal Mine makes the question of bringing children into an ailing world real and personal, and balances that worry and cynicism with a hopeful message about life's resilience.
PREVIOUSLY IN PIFA: An elephant on trial. No, like, literally, in a courtroom.
These huge arts festivals can be overwhelming — how to figure out what's worth seeing? CP's sending someone to nearly every event PIFA's putting on over the next month to help you decide, so check back with Critical Mass all month long for comprehensive, ongoing reviews.
SHOW: Sounds & Rhythm of Resistance
GENRE: Dance/Music
GROUP: Taller Puertorriqueño
ATTENDED: Fri., April 12, 6 p.m., Barnes Foundation
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: Taller Puertorriqueño travels back in time to celebrate Puerto Rico’s Emancipation Day; the day when slaves from African origin were set free on the island in 1873.
WE THINK: Taller Puertorriqueño long ago established itself as the hub of Philly-based Puerto Rican art and activism. For its joyous interpretation of Emancipation Day in Puerto Rico (March 22, 1873), the barrio gallery brought out its finest musicians and practitioners of Bomba dance for a densely percussive call-and-response performance.
The musical/vocal ensemble and its dancers welcomed audience participation, which was essential to the groove and the communal sensation of liberation. The sensuous, clave-heavy sound demanded interaction, especially when additional colorfully dressed dancers became part of the fray.
The only problem I had with the performance (as well as my own level of participation) wasn’t the fault of the Taller Puertorriqueño ensemble: It was the space. The Barnes’ largish community room that serves members and its friends on Friday nights was too big and airy to accommodate the sweaty intimacy of the band, its sound, the dancers and their glorious intent.
PREVIOUSLY IN PIFA: Seriously, a small town put an elephant in a courtroom and tried her for murder.
These huge arts festivals can be overwhelming — how to figure out what's worth seeing? CP's sending someone to nearly every event PIFA's putting on over the next month to help you decide, so check back with Critical Mass all month long for comprehensive, ongoing reviews.
SHOW: 1096
GENRE: Dance
GROUP: Pasión y Arte/Fresh Blood
ATTENDED: Sat., April 6, 7:30 p.m., Fleischer Art Memorial
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: Two all-female-companies interweave women's stories through the layering of text, song and dance while investigating the dialogue between the distinct languages of its two artistic collaborators, flamenco and post-modern.
WE THINK: Flamenco, a centuries-old Spanish dance style featuring controlled structures and complex rhythms is an odd pairing with postmodern technique, built on release and rule-breaking. Plus, the piece is inspired by women's history from 1096 onward, and subtitled "The Birth of the First Female Gynecologist." Ay caramba, how's that gonna work?
Splendidly, it turns out. The divergent dance styles merge seamlessly, though Flamenco gets the upper hand. It's a treat to see the post modern aesthetic adapt flamenco's emotional fervor and expressive arm movements. The evocation of journey comes by way of the dancers moving about Fleisher Art Memorial's historic cathedral-style sanctuary, performing various flamenco forms and hybrids thereof. A live flamenco singer goes along, intoning poetic songs. The lyrics are Spanish, but even if you don't speak that language (like me), the passion and pathos ring through loud and clear. The audience is close to the action, making the performer's intensity all the more visceral. Powerfully expressive, this one worked on all fronts. Olé!
PREVIOUSLY IN PIFA: King's College does great justice to Britten.
These huge arts festivals can be overwhelming — how to figure out what's worth seeing? CP's sending someone to nearly every event PIFA's putting on over the next month to help you decide, so check back with Critical Mass all month long for comprehensive, ongoing reviews.
SHOW: Dance Space
GENRE: Dance
ARTIST: Savion Glover
ATTENDED: March 30, 8 p.m., Academy of Music
CLOSED: March 30
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: “Dance Space immerses the audience in the ethereal atmosphere — complete with low lights, fiber-optic stars, and environmental sounds — as Glover’s solo choreography taps through the darkness, drawing people closer to a connection with the early universe.”
WE THINK: Savion Glover’s taps are a language unto themselves, and he is in constant conversation with them. Dance Space began with a series of sounds like the winding of gears in a clock, and then a blinding light as the audience was transported back to the beginning of time. Glover’s taps began slowly, building anticipation in the audience as a slow clack echoed across the stage, and out into space, like the tumbling of a small rock. In this way, Glover began to explore his own, and our, plot in existence.
The tapping was ultimately the most thrilling part of this show, as it should have been. The lights effectively created an atmosphere of early space, but the “environmental sounds” could have been taken directly out of a bad ‘80’s sci-fi movie. Glover was raised midway up the performance space, which at first was disappointing, since it left much of the audience without a clear view of his feet.
However, sound was the focus here, and the stage did allow for the audience to focus on the rhythms he was creating. The show hit its climax during a sequence in which Glover taps to a recording of his voice on loop, his legs tapping so feverishly they seemed to blur at the bottom. This is the point where Glover made clear why he danced, to fully show his emotion, to lose himself in the art, bending his body forward and backward as though to hear the sound more clearly, emphasizing the taps with his hands. At this point, I felt as though Glover was giving the audience a new way to experience the universe, to give sound back to it as it was given to all of us.
—Nikki Black
PREVIOUSLY IN PIFA: Reagan's shot and everything just got real weird.
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: Sequence 8
GROUP: Seven Fingers
GENRE: Dance
ATTENDED: Tue., Sept. 18, 7 p.m.
CLOSES: Sun., Sept. 23
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: The Montreal-based circus company creates circus on a human scale—placing the extraordinary element of circus in ordinary contexts. In extreme close-up, Sequence 8 features aerial hoops, rings, Korean board, cigar box juggling, Chinese acrobatics, and incredible feats of balance and beauty—all by performers whose basic human desires and qualities audiences can relate to.
WE THINK: With Sequence 8, Seven Fingers takes the adage about art imitating life to heart. Throughout the show, the company employs circus arts as metaphors for expressing ideas about elements of human life. The teeterboard, for instance, relates to the search for balance. A trapeze artist makes a number of attempts before getting his act in gear. Coincidental actions continually have consequences to others in the cast, which comes off like a bunch of good friends. It’s all very endearing, and risky, too. When a guy plunges down a tall pole, head first, stopping just inches from the ground, you get a real jolt of adrenaline. Other times the circus arts, though difficult to master, are presented in such as way as to make you want to jump on stage and join in what’s happening. These amiable performers truly connect with the audience, and that’s the neatest trick of all.
—Deni Kasrel
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: untitled feminist show
GROUP: Young Jean Lee's Theater Company
GENRE: Theater/dance
ATTENDED: Wed., Sept. 19, 9 p.m.
CLOSES: Fri. Sept. 21
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: In Young Jean Lee’s latest experiment, six charismatic stars of the downtown theater, dance, cabaret, and burlesque worlds come together to invite the audience on an exhilaratingly irreverent, nearly-wordless celebration of a fluid and limitless sense of identity.
WE THINK: Lee's "utopian feminist experience" is Bang's older, more serious sister, challenging the audience in profound ways (even the title — which isn't a title, yet is — provokes thought), yet born of the same fun spirit as Charlotte Ford's comic treatise on body image, sex and nudity. In untitled, six performers enter naked in a ritual procession, then perform a variety of dance and theater vignettes perceived through our constant awareness of their nudity. How, and why, does nudity affect us so much? From childlike games and a dance pantomiming domestic chores to Amelia Zirin-Brown's mimed offers to audience members of increasingly ridiculous sex acts , we're both confronted by their bare flesh and conditioned to ignore it. When the performers finally appear clothed for their bows, they seem unfamiliar, like they're suddenly in disguise.
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