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None dare call it dance
Headlong Dance Theater's "Red Rovers'
Merilyn Jackson
Theatrically, Headlong Dance Theater's Red Rovers has a beginning, middle and end. So why was I always waiting for it to begin, until the end? By then I realized the little dances by Christine Zani and actor David Disbrow that took place around the middle, were going to be "that's all there was."
It was another clever setup/sendup by the three wizards of wisenheimery, David Brick, Andrew Simonet and the ever-charming Amy Smith. In the lobby beforehand, audience members were given fake name tags (I chose Donna Galuska) and were greeted by Smith as if we were arriving for a conference. Inside the cool set, designed by Chris Doyle, we were divided into four groups and taken away (Amway-style) to confer so that no group knew what the others were up to.
My group was led by Disbrow, as a swell and sweaty nerd/scientist trying to get the Mars Red Rover working again. But as he explained how things got so screwed up, it became clear that his mind and Freudian slips were really focused on trying to get his marriage to his partner and colleague Zani working again.
Zani, mostly seen remotely on a skype-like screen, played her role with severity and danced with disdain for Disbrow. The two of them texted mathematical solutions back and forth. The clumsiness between them, the show's conceit, and the two little remote controlled robots (constructed by students at Central High) were adorable. But as was the case with Headlong's More in 2009, a lot of stuff just didn't add up.
The dances, which could have tied the disparate pieces together, were too little, too middling.
Instead of leaving Red Rovers excitedly chattering over what we'd seen, we spectators were puzzling over what we hadn't. Has Headlong forsaken dance? Maybe John Cage could get away with doing a piece for four minutes and 33 seconds in silence. But someone must be sitting motionless in front of the instrument to create the tension in the audience. Will she or won't she play?
The Headlongers need to rebalance their somatic and cerebral processes— creatively and collectively.
It was another clever setup/sendup by the three wizards of wisenheimery, David Brick, Andrew Simonet and the ever-charming Amy Smith. In the lobby beforehand, audience members were given fake name tags (I chose Donna Galuska) and were greeted by Smith as if we were arriving for a conference. Inside the cool set, designed by Chris Doyle, we were divided into four groups and taken away (Amway-style) to confer so that no group knew what the others were up to.
My group was led by Disbrow, as a swell and sweaty nerd/scientist trying to get the Mars Red Rover working again. But as he explained how things got so screwed up, it became clear that his mind and Freudian slips were really focused on trying to get his marriage to his partner and colleague Zani working again.
Zani, mostly seen remotely on a skype-like screen, played her role with severity and danced with disdain for Disbrow. The two of them texted mathematical solutions back and forth. The clumsiness between them, the show's conceit, and the two little remote controlled robots (constructed by students at Central High) were adorable. But as was the case with Headlong's More in 2009, a lot of stuff just didn't add up.
The dances, which could have tied the disparate pieces together, were too little, too middling.
Instead of leaving Red Rovers excitedly chattering over what we'd seen, we spectators were puzzling over what we hadn't. Has Headlong forsaken dance? Maybe John Cage could get away with doing a piece for four minutes and 33 seconds in silence. But someone must be sitting motionless in front of the instrument to create the tension in the audience. Will she or won't she play?
The Headlongers need to rebalance their somatic and cerebral processes— creatively and collectively.
What, When, Where
Red Rovers. Headlong Dance Theater production for Philadelphia Live Arts Festival through September 10, 2011 at Live Arts Studio, 919 N. Fifth St. (at Poplar). (215) 413-1318 or www.livearts-fringe.org.
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