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The Latest Reviews

Canyon Movement Company at the Boulder Fringe

Flagstaff's Canyon Movement Company At The Fringe - Not Scary

Flagstaff Arizona's Canyon Movement Company's 2010 Boulder Fringe show at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art (BMOCA) demonstrates that their choreographers - which seem to include every person in the performance - have some good ideas, at least for images and props. Unfortunately those ideas all tend to sustain for no more than one minute, in eight pieces that all last at least several minutes. Examples include the opening work - "Lost Souls" - that opens to a stunning image of four beautifully coiffed and dressed women sitting in pairs on turntables. Then Amanda Moore's choreography keeps them there way, way too long as they visibly turn the tables to music by Zoe Keating. It is almost as if Moore is determined to get mileage from her props and costumes no matter what it takes. And once that original image has been digested all she gets is mileage. In another work - "Buried Alive" - Molly McLean lays still by a bell on a staff, arms folded across her chest as stories are read about being - guess what - buried alive. Nothing else happens!!! Other works do make brave attempts at dance in both ensemble and solo works, most of which read as undergraduate choreography exercises, albeit some have good moments - very brief moments.

Admittedly the BMOCA venue with its sparse lighting and terrible light leaks (serious in a 5:30 PM August performance) detract from any attempts to build the scary images that Canyon's PR indicate would happen in the show. But, in reality, this concert would probably not work anywhere, and young people in the audience are more bored than scared. Despite this it must be recognized that it takes a monumental amount of effort to put up an hour long show like this, to say nothing of the expense of getting performers and those props to Boulder. So a big thank you to Canyon Movement Company for getting here and participating in the Fringe - where you pay a small fee and accept what happens.

Donald K. Atwood
Click here to read the entire review.

Language of Fish at the 2010 Boulder Fringe

Chappelle and Zimmerman Extend Cage Concepts

In 1952 John Cage developed a music performance titled "Four Minutes and Thirty Three Seconds." It was premiered in Harvard Square, where a grand piano was situated. Mr Cage arrived in "tails," sat at the piano, opened the keyboard cover, placed his hands in his lap for 4 minutes and 33 seconds, and closed that cover. Post performance Mr. Cage said he hoped his audience had heard the real music, like the cars and trucks in the street and their horns.

Soleil Chappelle's and Zoe Zimmerman's 2010 Boulder Fringe performance of "Language of Fish" evokes similar images. It is performed in a vacant lot at 3rd and Canyon in Boulder. The lot is overgrown with grass - much of it tramped down for the performance. A bright orange electrical cord stretches through it to power a lap top - the source of a minimal sound score - and a mature cherry tree sits in the "upstage" part of the space. Audience enters together along a tramped down path, and sits on sheets and/or "found" chairs of various age and disrepair. The traffic noise of cars on Canyon Boulevard racing into Boulder Canyon after being let loose from the last stop light overwhelms. The work begins with Zimmerman and Chappelle removing sheets from water in a wash tub and then improvising various movements with the wet sheets. They wring them out, wave them, snap them, and wrap them around their bodies. Throughout Zimmerman often shows an uncanny sense of what Chappelle's next movement choices will be and mimics them so closely it appears as a unison duet. They find frying pans - yes frying pans - hung and hidden in the cherry tree, dance with, on, and in those pans. They "drink" from a bottle hung in the tree. They dance in, on, and around chairs and with, on, and around each other. One brief moment - very brief - about love and sexuality, places them close in a second so erotic it shouts. They mime - directly mime - movements given them by a barely-heard-over-the-traffic soundscore. Children appear in the street and yell at the performers as their parents stand by and smile bemusedly. Zimmerman and Chappelle dig a hole. In the hole they find bowls full of dirt and leaves, which they pour over their heads. The audience sometimes watches them and at other times watch each other. One woman becomes self conscious about being watched, and points to the performers. The performers refill the bowls with dirt from the hole, add water from a huge teapot, mix the water and dirt into mud, cover their faces and arms with the mud, and delightfully rub their muddy faces together. They run to the edge of Canyon Boulevard, wait for a break in the traffic, run across the street and into the trees along Boulder Creek. The audience sits, begins to talk, and suddenly Chappelle and Zimmerman reappear on the far side of the street, faces and arms washed clean in Boulder Creek, and bow.

Donald K. Atwood
Click here to read the entire review.

Haan Dances at 2010 Boulder Fringe

Haan Dances: A Bright Spot in the 2010 Boulder Fringe Festival

Haan Dances, David Capps, and Mary Wohl Haan herself are certainly not "fringe," but their work certainly dresses up the 2010 Boulder Fringe Festival. Their concert includes three new works by Haan, two new video works by Stephanie Kobes, and a not-to-be-missed work set on Haan by New York City's - and previously CU/Boulder's - David Capps. The concert is performed in the Naropa University Performing Arts Center (PAC), and on August 19th suffered from some technical problems - which you know will be fixed - and a failure to cope with some sight line problems in the PAC. But, even with that it was one heck-of-a-lot of fun to watch.

One comedic piece, "HeeShee Overtures," in which Haan becomes a desperate male suitor, and Michael Gunst a tall, lovely woman plagued by Haan's over-the-top sexual approaches and klutziness, about had the August 19th audience falling out of their chairs with laughter. Especially given the total personality changes in Haan and Gunst effected by stunning masks, innovative costumes, and total changes in body language that would make Jane Comfort jealous. Haan opens the concert with her solo "Ain't Dance Grand." in which she copes with the nuances of a Respighi score of varied dynamic, articulation and tempo. Haan's "I Cannot See" - as performed by Linzee Klinkenberg, Chrissy Nelson, and Jennifer Twilley - seems part of a continuing Haan fascination with the animal in all of us. That work is ambitious, sometimes difficult to watch - as some works should be - and loses some impact in that interesting floor phrases are too far downstage to be seen in the PAC. (PAC sight lines are such that floor phrasing in the downstage half of the performance space can not be seen from the third row back.) Comments on the two Kobes videos are best left to an expert in that art form, but they are not really dance in that the videographer chooses what is seen, and videographers focus so much on their craft, that the essence of any dance is lost.

Donald K. Atwood
Click here to read the entire review.

Core Project Chicago at Boulder Fringe

Core Project Chicago at 2010 Boulder Fringe: Moments of Brilliance

The indoor dance parts of the 2010 Boulder Fringe Festival opened this week (August 19th) with Core Project Chicago's "Hint of It" in the recently closed small performance space in the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art. That space is now "reopened" for the Fringe Festival sans what was even before closing minimal technical capabilities. The Fringe is indeed about improvisation, and in this case even the space is improvised, with a less than minimal light plot (front only), no dressing room(s), and no wings. There are good seating risers and sight lines. However, Core Project Chicago adapts well to the space, using every square inch of it - even the unlighted parts where wings should be - in interesting ways. In fact, Core Project seems most adaptable, and is one of the few Fringe performance groups I have known that bothered to hand out a decent program and information about who they are. And they "adapt" to cello music by Bach and Zoe Keating, as well as to Philip Glass' huge and repetitive dynamic.

The "theme" of the performance seems to be about transitions of life's moments to new moments and perhaps what those transitions bring about. Recorded text relating to that is interesting, however, any sense of transfer of those concepts into the dance is not apparent. And eventually that text itself transitions into sophomoric ramblings about love and acceptance in thoughts usually only spoken by people young enough to think that either will ever be ideal. When that happens the dance tends to bog down as well, but some of the time that dance is not only well crafted, but lovely to watch. Ande Welling's at first understated and then full out opening solo, first unlighted and then lit only by light from a video projector, read well. Three unison duets spaced along a diagonal were inventive, in real unison, and with just enough repetition. A love duet by Justin Bourdet and Erin Rehberg was endearing and innovative, until it opened up into huge movements that could best be described as "throw away." Bourdet's totally dead pan face throughout that duet was an enigma. One long section of the concert where six performers stand with backs to the audience as another moves minimally behind them in a seeming effort to find a way in, is way, way too long to sustain - especially given the whispered, tedious text that accompanies it.

Donald K. Atwood
Click here to read the entire review.

Art as Action

Holding Pattern - Or You Can Do Anything You Want At Patrick's Packing House

The absolute delight of the Packing House Center for the Arts in Denver, Colorado is that neither it, nor its staff, judge anybody's art, and if you have the wherewithal to get your art there - and maybe pay some rent - you can put it up in that space. The results are often like an ongoing "Fringe Festival" where you pay your money and just accept what happens. That is pretty much what is going on this weekend with Art as Action's "Holding Pattern," in which that company is presenting twenty three works - yes(!) 23 - in a an over two hour concert in a space that is not air conditioned during the performance. Works vary from monologues, to theatre, to music, to dance and from one minute, to close to ten minutes in length. In some any length seems interminable given what happens, and in others one finds delightful gems that cause you to wonder how they stayed invisible to you until now.

One of those delights is Jill Leversee and much of the work she creates. To start with she is an amazing mover whose sheer stature and demeanor - which varies from in-your-face to tender - give her a stunning presence. Then there is her own choreography. Of special note is "Frayed Part I," in which she dances with a long, tethered bolt of lace fabric in ways that vary from tortuous to acceptance - with maybe that lace portraying some part of her she has trouble dealing with. Another is in her movement to a poem read by Jan Leversee ("Serious Business"), in which Jan Leversee's seriousness drives Jill to frantic, repetitive compulsive movement only stopped by a grabbing hug from Jan. "Frayed Part II" in the second half of the concert is a showcase for Jill Leversee's movement abilities, but seems to be just that and not near as interesting as Part I - perhaps in part because in Part II Leversee uses music with lyrics and those lyrics significantly changed audience focus to them as opposed to Leversee. When used (victimized) in other choreographers' works Leversee is not used nearly as well as in her own works - especially in one set to Lee Dewyze's "Hallelujah," where that song sets expectations the choreography never finds.

Donald K. Atwood
Click here to read the entire review.

   
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Marcy Memorial

RITUALS
Part of Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Theatre's
Fortieth Anniversary
Fridays September 17 and 24 at Saturdays
September 18 and 25 at 7:30 PM
Sundays September 19 and 26 at 2:00 PM
Historic Shorter AME Bldg. @ 119 Park Ave.,W., Denver
Tickets at www.cleoparkerdance.org & 303-295-1759 X 13
Rituals Pic
Photo by Steve Clarke




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