Overground Physical Theater Company

What I saw last night. Overground Physical Theater Company at Dance Theater Workshop. The program description with its 13 part synopsis is so long and complicated it would be pointless to attempt to sum up here. Something about a black out while on the subway and religious conversions occurring when you can’t be distracted by the newspaper or your phone. Several women and a couple of men (one looks like Mick Fleetwood) attempt to channel every religion and new age trope into a performance that leaves you believing in nothing more than an hour and thirty five minutes is too long without an intermission. Elements: circuit boards, broken umbrellas, power strips, rubber tire tubes, mirror box, net, computer keyboards, pyramid hat, dressing like Hershey kisses, singing, chanting talking, live music, film, keys, entering the audience, just about everything..
Title: “Urban Tao”
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Neta Pulvermacher Dance Company

What I saw last night. Neta Pulvermacher Dance Company at Dance Theater Workshop. Well not a super eventful walk to the theater but I did discover that it is Fleet Week. A strange show with close to 20 dancers. Lots of children were present which may suggest something about the tone of the work. We were offered pennies upon entering the space which we were instructed to use in the sculpture garden. This turned out to be the dancers in various poses on and near buckets. Give a coin and they do some animatronic movements. When the show began they moved these buckets about in a myriad of combinations (on heads, from fish line above etc.) mostly to good results although some parts dragged.Trying a new feature today. Punny headlines based on show. “Bucket Brigade”. I will see if I can keep this up.

Elements: buckets, pennies, singing, drumming, stacking, lights in buckets, audience participation
Title: “2280 Pints!”
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Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company

What I saw last night. Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company at Dance Theater Workshop. A very dark theater with a lot of very slow movement. Included scroll painting like previously viewed Shen Wei and submerging your head in water and thrashing it about like Pina Bausch and waving rippling sheets the length of the stage like Alvin Ailey’s “Revelations”. Fill a seat long enough and you can start to recognize similarities to other works. Yay me.

Elements: Chineses characters illuminated and on scrolls, scrolls, loud exhaling, voice over, talking, water, paint etc.
Title: “Dragons on the Wall Tianji”
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Richard Move

What I saw last night. Richard Move at Dance Theater Workshop. Much of the campiness is toned down in his channeling of Martha Graham. Though there is still plenty of humor in the re-creation of an interview from the 92^nd Street Y. Sort of the Frost Nixon for the dance set.

Elements: talking, drinking, chairs, table, video
Title: “Martha@…The 1963 Interview”
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VERDENSTEATRET

What I saw last night. VERDENSTEATRET at Dance Theater Workshop. More of an installation or concert than a dance. The stage is littered with bicycle sculptures, moving PA speakers, an accordion that plays itself etc. It is like a steampunk mad scientist lab.

Elements: zeppelin, birds, film, bicycles, light bulbs, lens, projections, accordion etc.
Title: “And All the Question Marks Start to Sing”
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Walter Dundervill

What I saw last night. Walter Dundervill at Dance Theater Workshop. Several women and men lay head to head on the floor in a circle and begin to roll around. They also run about with their tops falling off. I am not sure what it was all in service of but some of it looked OK.

Elements: nudity, colorful cardboard, acting
Title: “Aesthetic Destiny 1: Candy Mountain”
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Raimund Hoghe “Sans-titre”

What I saw last night. Raimund Hoghe at Dance Theater Workshop. Second time seeing him in a week but this was a duet with Faustin Linyekula who seems to be extremely fit in contrast to Mr. Hoghe’s malformed spine. Still a quiet meditative piece with no spoken word. Just a lit candle and some stones.

After I went home to see the remains of the tornado that hit the city.

Elements: candle, stones, paper
Title: “Sans-titre”
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Zvidance

What I saw last night. Zvidance at Dance Theater Workshop. The audience is instructed to used their cell phones to photograph the show and text the dancers during the performance. Later in the evening they text or call the audience members back. Iphone users were mostly at a loss since AT&T could not stand up to the stress of a dozen or so phones being used in the room. I had hoped to get this blog’s address displayed during the show and have my first ever promotion but AT&T foiled me. Technology fails me again.

Elements: slide-show, cell phones, laptops, already on stage before show
Title: “Zoom”
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Faye Driscoll

What I saw last night. Faye Driscoll at Dance Theater Workshop. The sun still up before a show which is a hopeful sign after all this rain and cold. A show with a lot of acting and running around in the audience. At one point it reminded me of the prison program “scared straight” when a dancer was yelling at us. Also monologues from Oprah and Tyra etc.

Elements: acting, singing, nudity, faux talk shows, simulate sex and assaults
Title: “There is so much mad in me”
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koosil-ja/danceKumiko

What I saw last night. koosil-ja/danceKumiko at Dance Theater Workshop. A somewhat maddening show including many large monitors and dancers attached to Wii controllers in order to dance with their avatars. Not quite Gene Kelly with Tom & Jerry. Also a musician meditated while attached to his head was a brain wave monitor that in some way made a drumstick hit the wall. A lot of tech but does anyone just dance anymore.

Elements: video, live music, Wii controllers, a zillion laptops etc.
Title: “Blocks of Continuality/Body, Image and Algorithm”
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