My Friday night at the Fringe started at Little Theatre 1
for the second performance of Kinect the Dots. This
show is a collaboration between FuturePointe
Dance and RIT Projection Artists in which the movements of the dancers are
captured live with an Xbox Kinect (hence the title),
projected on to the Little 1’s screen, and then integrated into projections by
the RIT team.
The show started about 10 minutes late — dangerous in a
festival where some people’s schedules are booked back to back. But once the
dancers took the stage for the first number the show moved quickly. FuturePointe is a proudly multicultural dance troupe, and
part of its mission is to connect different kinds of people through dance.
Bridging cultures was reflected in the movements, particularly in the first
piece, in which I could pick out a mélange of ethnic-dance influences — Indian Bollywood, some Latin partner work, etc.
FuturPointe performed five or six
pieces with various dancer combinations — full troupe, solos, duos, etc. Some
were more successful than others, and some took better advantage of the
projection aspect of the show. The solo featuring a young woman twirling about
with her shawl was especially effective with the multimedia, while the duo
between the magnetic N’Jelle Gage and Guy Thorne was
so riveting I barely looked at the screen. With most numbers I found myself
wrestling with whether to pay attention to the dancers on the stage, or the
colorful, visually arresting projections going on behind them. But it was a
good struggle — either experience was worthwhile.
The show did have a few minor technical glitches — at least
one music cue proved problematic, and there was a weird digital chaff on the
bottom half of the Little screen that I’m fairly
confident wasn’t supposed to be there. But whatever little issue came up on the
tech side, or even some of the dancers’ bobbles, were quickly forgiven in the
face of the troupe’s enthusiasm and earnestness.
The show ended with the dancers leaving the stage and
encouraging the audience to join them in playing with the Kinect.
I typically loathe audience participation segments, but even I can’t resist the
allure of a “Soul Train”-style walk off. Everyone got on stage, we all learned
some new dance moves (desperately needed for this grooveless
white boy), and by the end literally everyone was smiling.
Kinect the Dots also takes
place Friday, September 27, 5 & 6 p.m. at Little Theatre 1. Tickets cost
$10. FuturePointe also performs Saturday and Sunday,
September 21-22, at the “Psychopomp & Pageantry”
show at Geva Theatre Nextstage.
After that I walked down East Main Street to Blackfriars Theatre for its first show of the Fringe,
“Ole!” This touring show by Theater in Asylum had one of the most alluring
premises of all the 2013 Fringe shows, and I’m happy to say it lived up to
expectations.
If you go to “Ole!” — and you should — arrive 15
or so minutes early. At the performance I attended, guitarist Randall Benichak and dancer Sofia Lund took to the stage early to
perform a captivating flamenco set that showcased the grace and power of the
dance and music. Just lovely.
Benichak and Lund are also
integrated to “Ole!” itself — Lund’s Dancer is an especially critical part of
the piece — but the spotlight shifts to Frankie Alicea
as Federico Garcia Lorca and Jake Lasser as Salvador
Dali. The piece takes much of its dialogue directly from letters from Lorca to
Dali, and vice versa, but the program explicitly states that the play is “largely
based on speculation, interpretation, and bias.”
Listen to the words these two men wrote/said
about one another, it’s hard to imagine that what the playwrights came up with is much of
a stretch. Dali and Lorca were schoolmates in Madrid in 1919. Each recognized
and respected the intense creative spirit in the other, even as they operated
under very different muses. Poet/playwright/author Lorca — portrayed here as a
soft-spoken, self-doubting soul — searched for the “duende,”
or magic of life, while Surrealist painter Dali, here a supernova of ego and
mercurial energy, rejected anything spiritual and was fascinated by the
“perfection” of the modern, mechanical age.
The mutual artistic respect eventually grows into something
much more intense, and climaxes with the two Spanish legends spending a summer
together in 1927 (again, this is historical fact). What happened there becomes
the crux of the play, as through letters and flashbacks, dancing and simulated
bullfighting, Lorca and Dali try to come to terms with what is developing
between them. For one of the men it was clearly too much. (Similarly, a
particularly steamy scene that prompted one couple to walk out of the theater.
Seriously, folks — chill out; there’s no nudity and it’s all extremely
tasteful.)
The story in “Ole!” is engaging enough, but what really
makes this show special is the way it is presented. This is smart theater. I
loved the way the flamenco elements, the bullfighting, the sword
play, etc. reflecting both Spanish culture and art were woven into the
piece. The segment where Dali explains how to create a Surrealist image via
flamenco dancing — genius. The play also tackles a wide range of very hefty
topics, everything from the origins of creativity and spirituality to Spanish
culture’s obsession with death and uncomfortable same-sex attraction. And it
does it all in a brisk, unyielding 70 minutes.
The performances are all excellent. Benichak’s
guitar is a welcome supporting cast member. Lund is a wild-eyed, captivating
presence on stage, even when she isn’t actively dancing. Jake Lasser has the flashier part as Dali. At first he is a
preening rooster, crowing about his brilliance, running the artistic roost. Every move
and line was over-the-top and exaggerated. But later, as Dali starts to
question, well, everything, we see real heart in Lasser’s
performance. Frankie Alicea is strong as Lorca,
delivering the writer’s gorgeous — but complicated — poems and centering the
show with his assured performance. There were a few occasions where the cadence
of the poetry started coming out a bit rushed, causing me to miss some of
Lorca’s enchanting words. But that only encouraged me to hit up Amazon and
purchase everything Lorca ever wrote. Still a win.
“Ole!” is also
performed Saturday, September 21, at 3 & 8 p.m. at Blackfriars
Theatre. Tickets cost $11.
This article appears in Sep 18-24, 2013.
