Ten Questions. Ten Answers. And one Big Surprise in the audience …

Punk Grandpa

produced by Glitter Candy

Punk Grandpa is about one magical weekend 5 3/4 year old misfit Laura spent with her grandpa, portrayed through storytelling, dance, music and vintage family movies and photos. Grandpa was the most free, most inappropriate person Laura ever knew and this show portrays how he set Laura free to be herself through his humor and unpredictable, wild ways. It’ll put hair on your chest.

Show  Info:

• Fri Feb 19, 2016 | 5:30PM
• Sun Feb 21, 2016 | 3:30PM
• Mon Feb 22, 2016 | 8:50PM
• Tue Feb 23, 2016 | 7:10PM
• Sun Feb 28, 2016 | 6:50PM
• Sat Mar 05, 2016 | 3:50PM

UNDER St. Marks New York, NY $10/$12

Answers by Laura Force Scruggs
(playwright, producer)

1. Forget the PR version. When you’re talking to your friends, how do you explain this show to them?
Laura: It’s about being different and how my grandpa helped me to find myself (by showing how he really didn’t care what anyone thought) and to be okay with who I am: a freak and a fairy (for example: Tinkerbell). My brother told me, “You aren’t just a freak in the freakshow, you are the entire freakshow.”

2. Here’s a scenario: After the show some audience members go have a drink.  What’s the part of the show you hope they’re discussing?
Laura: I hope they’re discussing anything funny grandpa did, like pretending to communicate with spies through his hearing aids, playing in the high school band (since senior citizens could audit any class for free and he didn’t feel ready to play in a band with people his own age yet), or going to a Lost and Found and asking, “Did anyone turn in a black umbrella?” One of my top hopes for the show is for my grandpa’s legacy to be carried on, of how he found humor and spontaneity in the every day and had no fear. I aspire every day to possess the kind of freedom that he had, as my Uncle Jon says, the kind of freedom for which people would spend thousands of dollars for in therapy.

3. What drives your show – character, theme or plot?
Laura: I feel like the characters of grandpa and Laura drive the show, Laura feeling like she doesn’t fit in anywhere and grandpa helping her find herself by modeling that it’s okay to be herself by being his full-out unfiltered, spontaneous self and loving her unconditionally, while others around her don’t “get her.” The character of grandpa is always doing the unexpected, like telling other people at church who are bragging about their kids’ prestigious careers, “My kids are doing great, too. My son John, he lives in New York. He drives a big car, runs his own business. He’s a pimp. And, my daughter, Amy, she’s doing real well, too. She works for him!”

4. In rehearsals, read-thrus, or prior incarnations, what’s the one thing someone said about the show so far that made you (or the team) the most proud?
Laura: “It is simply put, perfect beauty.

Intersections of identity and vulnerability and honesty and history and family, executed by a very talented and special performer, coming together in a way that touched everyone’s hearts.

If you’ve ever felt different and admired the freedom that comes with just being true to that difference, no matter what other people think or say, go see it! Really.”

~Audience member at Chicago Fringe

5. If money and resources (and even reality) were no object what is the most lavish, luxurious, pointless prop, costume, effect – anything – that you would spend money on for this show?
Laura: A full big band orchestra, super over-sized objects in the dream sequence (like a donut bigger than me), lots of puppets, elves playing ice hockey in the freezer and more fairiness: a chorus of real fairies, an over-the-top fairy costume for the character of Laura with genuine fairy dust and a wand that could make wishes come true!

6. What’s the one thing you’re looking forward to regarding the FRIGID Festival itself?
Laura: I am really excited to see what a cast and director (who have never met my family) do with a show that I wrote based on my family (and originally as a one woman show), who are collaborating along with my production manager/stage manager/dramaturg, who is my cousin and shared the same punk grandpa with me. This is a New York premiere of the multiple character cast version of “Punk Grandpa” (it was first performed with multiple characters at Three Brothers Theatre in Waukegan); I’ve been performing it as a one woman show on and off for the past two years at various festivals throughout Chicago, Orlando, Indiana, Elgin and at the 2015 New York Planet Connections Theatre Festivity.

7. Is there a scene, a moment, a gesture … anything at all in the show that you anticipate may get a completely different reaction depending on the audience that night?
Laura: Grandpa yelling out of his car window at every lady we saw on the street, as he drove us around at exhilarating rates of speed, “Hey, pick you up in an hour!”

and/or

When grandpa was asked to take a fertility test at the doctor and was handed the cup, he said, “Oh, I thought someone was going to help me.”

8. What’s your favorite line from the show?
Laura: That’ll put hair on your chest.

and

If someone told grandpa no (including grandma), he just thought they needed more information.

9. What’s the last thing you usually do before the beginning of a show?
Laura: Pray and hug my husband really hard.

10. You scan the audience and you see a face that stops you dead in your tracks – who is it? And why are you shocked?
Laura: If Weird Al showed up, it would be astounding and magical, as he is someone who, like my grandpa, is unafraid to be himself.

I love Weird Al!  Wouldn’t it be great if he saw your show and was so inspired that he contributed a song to it?  Based on what you’ve told us, he’d have no shortage of material for a whole series of Grandpa songs!

The rest of you – don’t forget to check out Punk Grandpa.

 -*-*-

Horse Trade Theater Group will present the 10th Annual FRIGID New York Festival at The Kraine Theater (85 East 4^th Street between 2^nd Avenue and Bowery) and UNDER St. Marks (94 St. Marks Place between 1^st Avenue and Avenue A) February 16-March 6. All shows run 60 minutes, or less. Tickets are available for purchase in advance at http://www.horsetrade.info/  

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• Lil’ Women: a rap musical: 10 Things To Know About The Show Before You Go (2016 FRIGID NEW YORK FESTIVAL)
• Don’t Move To Toronto: 10 Things To Know About The Show Before You Go (2016 FRIGID NEW YORK FESTIVAL)
• A Broad Abroad!: 10 Things To Know About The Show Before You Go (2016 FRIGID NEW YORK FESTIVAL)
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For Body And Light is so ethereal that to try and describe it flows beyond the bounds of a normal review. It’s almost as if what is expressed cannot be caught – or recreated … or defined with enough fluency to properly convey the experience of this breathtakingly beautiful production from TRAVAIL ROUGE now playing as part of the 2014 Frigid New York Festival.

For Body And Light is directed and choreographed by Stéphanie Morin-Robert in collaboration with spoken word and music artist Ian Ferrier.  Together they have created a work so mesmerizing, so hypnotic, so trance-inducing that one hour with this talented group of performers will not only bring you the type of peace and calm that one usually seeks out in, perhaps, a yoga studio or a church  – or in other places of meditation — but it will also have filled you with a longing to stop your own world for a little while and just … be.  With phrases like ”Rosary of thought”  this performance is filled with prayer – not to a god, however, but to a state of consciousness.

For Body And Light is not plot based, but there is no denying the story: the rich sound design, the dulcet spoken words and the echoing movement all take you to a place that is drenched in waves, fog, and other forms of sea and tide and tide-pool and ocean.

Have you ever sat by the sea in silent contemplation?  The water – at once blank and vast – suddenly takes on subtleties and shadings which speak to you, inviting you to simply stay present in the moment.  And suddenly the repetition is no longer endless and monotonous but rather lively and versatile and filled with possibility, even as it repeats its ancient progression as it always has and always will.  This is what it is like to watch For Body And Light.

As Ferrier describes a world of stars, of torchlight, of “beauty and strangeness” with wondrous creatures and the water climbing over the edge we watch as incredibly graceful, lithe and limber bodies mimic the water, riding the waves, being the waves.  They are twisting and churning in a beautiful, tortuous undulating symmetry.

There is a moment in For Body And Light when the dancers move together on the ground like creatures who are bonded by something timeless and ancient and unspoken.   Saturated in both bright light as well as shadow, bodies roil and sway in an echo of the sounds of the surf which are played gently underneath the softly intoned words of Ferrier.  As he speaks of imaginative worlds which dwell in tide pools and the shapes that move within them, of the life that is both ancient and pristine, our own corporeal frames seem to become lighter, less “mine” more universal. Watching this show, you feel both at one with the performance as well as completely alone in your own solitude.

So much light your mind is almost purged of darkness …

We’re not meant to live without shadows

The source of light is a type of pail which swings from a long rope and is raised and lowered as the movement dictates.  Often it swings forcefully casting unpredictable, unexpected layers of shadow-play.  Sometimes it is beamed on the swaying bodies carefully, the way a silent midnight searcher would move their flashlight on the beach in the hopes of discovering something wonderful without disturbing it.   Choreographer Morin-Robert works this light expertly, part Kuroko, part ensemble performer.  She moves the light (as do other dancers) and so the beam becomes another character – moving, engaging with the swaying bodies, leaving some in shadow and burning others in a stark high beam.

The words are both philosophical as well as straight-forward: take this speech at face value or let the journey of light and movement and atmosphere allow the words to become a metaphor for your life.  However you take it, it remains breathtakingly beautiful.

Movement performed by: Alexia Martel, Linnea Gwiazda, Allison Burns, Marie-Pier Gilbert and Marie-France Jacques

~~~
For Body And Light
Company: TRAVAIL ROUGE

Directed and choreographed by: Stéphanie Morin-Robert
Spoken word and music: Ian Ferrier

Remaining Performances:

Mar 05, 5:30PM
Mar 06, 10:15PM
Mar 07, 7:05PM

Click HERE for tickets

Running time: 1 h 0 min
Price: $10.00 – $15.00
Seating: General Admission

The Kraine Theater
85 E. 4th Street
New York , New York 10003
2nd and 3rd Ave

Horse Trade Theater Group will present the 8th Annual FRIGID New York Festival at The Kraine Theater (85 East 4^th Street between 2^nd Avenue and Bowery) and UNDER St. Marks (94 St. Marks Place between 1^st Avenue and Avenue A) February 19-March 9. Tickets are available for purchase in advance at www.FRIGIDnewyork.info or by calling 212-868-4444. 

Related Posts:

• For Body And Light: 10 Things To Know About The Show Before You Go (2014 FRIGID NEW YORK FESTIVAL)
• Punk Grandpa: 10 Things To Know About The Show Before You Go (2016 FRIGID NEW YORK FESTIVAL)
• Sheherizade: Why Ten Dancing Heads Are Better Than One (Fringe Festival 2012)
• Dandy Darkly’s Trigger Happy!: 10 Things To Know About The Show Before You Go (2016 FRIGID NEW YORK FESTIVAL)
• Eighth Grade: 10 Things To Know About The Show Before You Go (2016 FRIGID NEW YORK FESTIVAL)

Ten Questions. Ten Answers. And One Big Decision: Rock, Paper, Or Scissors?

Linnea and Heather in For Body and Light. CREDIT: Michael Kovacs

For Body and Light

Production Company: Travail Rouge

Explores the interface between darkness and light, form and imagination; meditative stillness, then moving shapes, whispered words and the light catching only the ghost of a body as it flashes past. In darkness, spoken word creates and projects directly onto your imagination. Dancers are colour, beauty, touch, intimacy and solitude…

Show Times:

• Sat 3/01 @ 12:30PM
• Mon 3/03 @ 8:40PM
• Wed 3/05 @ 5:30PM
• Thur 3/06 @ 10:15PM
• Fri 3/07 @ 7:05PM

Answers by Yan Ferrer
(writer/musician/performer)

1. Your tag line is out there on postcards and press releases so we know the PR version of what this play is about.  But when you talk to your family and friends, how do you explain the show to them?

YF: You’re lying back at night after a full day. You close your eyes and images of the day are still flashing through your mind. You start to drift and you hear a voice whispering to you, just at the edge of consciousness. It’s describing a place you’ve imagined before, where you wanted to be. It’s just details at first, but then all of a sudden you’re in it.

2. Here’s a scenario: After the show some audience members go have a drink.  What’s the part of the show you hope they’re discussing?

YF:  How they forgot where they were, and now wonder where they went.

3. What drives your show – character, theme or plot?

YF:  Beauty.

4. In rehearsals, read-thrus, or prior incarnations, what’s the one thing someone said about the show so far that made you (or the team) the most proud?

YF:  “For Body and Light has created an impressive repertoire of dance performance that does precisely what their name promises: Creative use of lamps as hand-held props, sharp lighting effects, minimal yet evocative onstage environments, and the beauty and power of a poet’s words give the company an exciting and vast field of dance performance possibility to work within.”

5. Let’s fantasize for a moment. Let’s take the “off-off” off. Imagine this show is on Broadway. Would that change the production itself?

YF: There are a couple of moments at the height of a hurricane where overwhelming water and sound would work well. Otherwise no, we’re fine as we are.

6. Taking that one step further – after paying everyone what they’re worth of course, what is the most lavish, luxurious, pointless thing you would spend money on if there was no constraints?

YF: Flood the stage in six inches of water and have the dancers move in that for the last act.

7. Is there a scene, a moment, a gesture … anything at all in the show that you anticipate may get a completely different reaction depending on the audience that night?

YF: I don’t know what changes from night to night as I live really deep inside it. I do know that each time it happens different things come to the fore. On one night a really intuitive performance from one dancer can color the whole show. They are all artists and while a unison piece may make them resemble each other, each brings a total vocabulary to what she does.

On another night what seems most important is the beauty of relationships, how one dancer moves with another.

Some nights I am blown away by light and how it colors a body in motion. On those nights the show seems really contemporary. At other times, when they gather around a light, they almost seem like participants in an ancient religious ritual.

8. What’s your favorite line from the show?

YF:This is the beach where you
Took off for an afternoon sail
And the wind kicked up and the rudder snapped
Now you’re 400 miles off course
Out in the tanker lanes scrambling for your life

9. Is the world of this play sustainable outside a theatre? In other words … do you think people live the way the characters do? Would you want a world where they do?

YF: People dream the way this show is made. It takes place in the interface between sleep and waking, fantasy and imagination and life. In the best part of the dream you are surrounded by five dancers so beautiful you can’t take your eyes off them; in the worst, they are all taken away from you.

10. You scan the audience and you see a face that stops you dead in your tracks – who is it? And why are you shocked?

YF: Wim Wenders and he’s scouting us for his sequel to Pina.

Rock, Paper, Scissors Tournament of DEAAAAATH

In the THM virtual Rock, Paper, Scissors Tournament of DEAAAAATH which FRIGID Show do you take on? And what do you throw?

CHALLENGES:  We take on Eating My Garbage.

THROWS:  We wait and see what they throw then throw something to top it.

Well, EATING MY GARBAGE threw scissors, so that leaves you with ROCK! So, yes, technically you win THIS round but there may be more rounds to come — and let me just tell you, FOR BODY AND LIGHT you folks are beautiful, thoughtful, and SNEAKY!!! But your devious practices got you the win. THIS TIME.

Thanks For Body and Light for participating in The Happiest Medium’s FRIGID New York Festival 2014 Q&A. And for playing our game! You’re officially ROCK in any and all challenges.  You may win, you may lose – who knows! This is how it works in the crazy world of the Rock, Paper, Scissors Tournament of DEAAAAATH!

For the rest of you don’t forget to check out For Body and Light !

~~~ 

  ~~~

Horse Trade Theater Group will present the 8th Annual FRIGID New York Festival at The Kraine Theater (85 East 4^th Street between 2^nd Avenue and Bowery) and UNDER St. Marks (94 St. Marks Place between 1^st Avenue and Avenue A) February 19-March 9. Tickets are available for purchase in advance at www.FRIGIDnewyork.info or by calling 212-868-4444. 

Related Posts:

• Confessions Of A Redheaded Coffeeshop Girl: 10 Things To Know About The Show Before You Go (2014 FRIGID NEW YORK FESTIVAL)
• Questions Of The Heart: 10 Things To Know About The Show Before You Go (2014 FRIGID NEW YORK FESTIVAL)
• Almost A Genius: 10 Things To Know About The Show Before You Go (2014 FRIGID NEW YORK FESTIVAL)
• The Eyes Of Orbach: 10 Things To Know About The Show Before You Go (2014 FRIGID NEW YORK FESTIVAL)
• A Date For The Evening: 10 Things To Know About The Show Before You Go (2014 FRIGID NEW YORK FESTIVAL)

The Happiest Medium review by guest contributor Rebecca Bernard

 A man and a woman wake up in bed beside each other, neither one recognizing the other and then going about their day. This is the premise or idea behind Contrasts, a highly physical story that “reveals the ever-present contrasts between men and women.”

Much happens in this hour long duo performance, conceived and performed by Dana Cavaleru and Richard Bovnoczki. The gifted performers transition from scene to scene with little dialogue,  creating beautiful pictures and humorous scenes. Familiar and not so familiar scenes are explored through the specific style of theatre the two Romanian actors have developed; a fresh combination of pantomime, dance and theatre. A stand out scene includes the recreation of a black and white picture, complete with scratchy erratic movements that Bovnoczki depicted so well the night I attended that the audience burst into applause. Dialogue introduced in the performance doesn’t distract – it sparkles, proving that both the performers’ voices and the use of different languages are as engaging as their  physicality.

Though beautiful moments are created and the premise is strong, the play does not entirely follow through. One is not quite sure who the characters are. Is the man and woman the same man and woman throughout, or are they musings on a theme? Each scene ends and goes into another, often with the absence of a transition to help make sense of this. And though the performers’ miming is often very good, this same lack of follow through shows up at times when an object is created and suddenly dropped, breaking the illusion it created for the audience. Half way through the actors start to include the audience, reacting to breaths, sighs and reactions from the audience.

Though this quality is nice, it becomes confusing since it wasn’t present from the beginning of the piece. Overall, though, the contrast of confusion to beauty, inventiveness and fun wins over the audience, making Contrasts a joy to watch.

~~~

CONTRASTS
Richard Bovnoczki and Dana Cavaleru
Director: Richard Bovnoczki, Dana Cavaleru
Theatre. Pantomime. Dance. Original stage vocabulary. Stories that make you laugh or cry. Two Romanian actors revealing contrasts. An ever changing imaginary set. Several European Awards. “If Tom and Jerry saw this show they would have reasons to be envious.”
1h 0m   International   Bucharest, Romania
Comedy   Dance
Staycation: In Someone Else’s Shoes   Ride the Rollercoaster of Love
www.contrastsshow.blogspot.com
VENUE #19: HERE Dorothy B. Williams Theater
Wed 15 @ 8  Thu 16 @ 4:15  Sat 18 @ 6  Sun 19 @ 8:15  Tue 21 @ 7  Thu 23 @ 7

Related Posts:

• Dancing Into India – Being Becoming (Fringe Festival 2012)
• Pink Milk (Fringe Festival 2012)
• Punk Grandpa: 10 Things To Know About The Show Before You Go (2016 FRIGID NEW YORK FESTIVAL)
• For Body And Light (2014 Frigid New York Festival)
• For Body And Light: 10 Things To Know About The Show Before You Go (2014 FRIGID NEW YORK FESTIVAL)

If you feel like taking a trip to New Delhi or Mumbai this summer, skip the flight and hop on the 6 train to Astor Place. There, at the White Box Theater at 440 Studios, Malini Srinivasan accompanied by Kadhambari Sridhar and Umesh Venkatesan will transport you not only to the Indian subcontinent, but also back in time to the second century, B.C. with their mesmerizing Bharathanatyam performance, Being Becoming.

At first, she’ll hide from you behind the translucent magenta curtain, where she will skillfully put on her make-up so her already beautiful eyes will dazzle even brighter. Then she will wrap the jiggling bracelets around her ankles. Next, she will weave flowers in her hair – and the curtain will rise – lifted by the other two dancers as if  to invite the audience into a world none of us really know. For the next hour or so, the lithe and nimble trio clad in gold, blue and red iridescent costumes will tell us stories about a spiritual seeker, a woman in love and even about the Hindu gods Shiva and Parvati – all without a single word. The artists don’t need any sounds but the music and the changing staccato of its beat. The mastery of Bharathanatyam is being able to tell the story without speaking.

One of the oldest Indian classical dance forms, Bharathanatyam has a name as complex as the techniques it employs. In Tamil, a language spoken in South India, Bha- stands for Bhavam (expression), Ra- for Ragam (music) and Ta- for Talam (beat or rhythm) while Natyam means dance. So if Bharathanatyam looks unpronounceable, try Bharatha Natyam.

Having evolved from ancient Indian dancing, Bharatha Natyam is characterized by nrtta – the movement technique of complex rhythmic patterns and sharp and clear geometric shapes made by the dancers’ bodies. Another unique characteristic of this classic art form is abhinaya, the mastery of expression, and the dancers’ use of hand gestures and symbols to relate the story and their emotions to the audience.

There is a reason why the performance in called Being Becoming. It’s not just a beguiling title, made to catch your eye in the nearly 200 Fringe shows this year. The name takes its origin in the essential ideas of Hindu and Buddhist beliefs, presenting the concept that a person can become one with the object of his or her desire or devotion. This idea, also popular in Indian poetry and painting, weaves through the performance pieces of the show: the spiritual seeker wishes to unite with Lord Shiva and the lovesick maiden wants to be one with Lord Vishnu.

Granted or not, their desires and explorations are a way to disappear in your dreams, and a form of meditation, perhaps. And so the dance goes on with its sharp and precise hand movements, the seductive head rolls and the gentle flutter of eyelashes followed by fervent looks up above for an ultimate solution for all the mortal and immortal ills – leading us through the wonders of Indian mythology and thousands of years of history.

~~~

Being Becoming
Malini Srinivasan and Dancers
Choreographer: Malini Srinivasan
She puts on her make-up and becomes a classical Bharatanatyam dancer. With each dazzling gesture she transforms into a playful child, forlorn lover, or Ardhanariswara: half-man, half-woman. Join us on a journey where gestures create and each of us transforms.
1h 15m   Local   Queens, New York
Dance   Drama
Staycation: Overseas Adventure   Ride the Rollercoaster of Love
www.malinisrinivasan.com
VENUE #06: The White Box at 440 Studios
Sat 11 @ 2:30  Fri 17 @ 6:15  Sun 19 @ 9:15  Tue 21 @ 2  Thu 23 @ 9:15  Fri 24 @ 7

Related Posts:

• Contrasts (Fringe Festival 2012)
• Pink Milk (Fringe Festival 2012)
• Snow White Zombie: Apocalypse – The End Is Nigh In Fairy Tale Land (Fringe Festival 2012)
• Punk Grandpa: 10 Things To Know About The Show Before You Go (2016 FRIGID NEW YORK FESTIVAL)
• For Body And Light (2014 Frigid New York Festival)

2012 marks the centennial anniversary of the birth of British mathematician, Alan Turing, widely acknowledged today as the father of the computer. Internationally it has been dubbed Alan Turing Year, and Olympic torch bearers stopped before a commemorative statue of him on route to the London stadium in tribute to an, as yet, little recognized giant in the history of technological advancement. Winston Churchill opined that Turing’s decryption device helped to end WWII years earlier than might otherwise have been achieved. Turing’s life story, however, is a singularly harsh tragedy. A homosexual, in 1952 he was convicted of gross indecency with another man, and compelled to take female hormones as a therapeutic treatment for his “criminal” deviance, a procedure widely referred to as chemical castration. Just two years later he was found dead in his bed due to cyanide poisoning.

Alex Paul Young‘s theatrical piece, Pink Milk, is a highly personal, impressionistic work – a mash up of contemporary gay themes and biographical details from Turing’s life. Fueled by a righteous outrage and abandoned to a fantastical world of make believe, it dispenses with any sense of historical, cultural, or scientific accuracy, to present a free-form poetic narrative fused with dance and music. It’s an odd departure point from which to explore the life of a celebrated logician and mathematician, but that’s not all that’s odd about it. Young’s Turing, as a boy, develops a robotic playmate that runs on apples. In real life, the adult Turing was enraptured by Disney’s animated film, Snow White. Apples – plastic white ones and natural red ones – denote the stage boundaries, and actors regularly bite into one together as an indication of shared understanding. As a boy Alan is shown to be distracted by daisies growing on playing fields, and these engage him in life and death discussions. A glass of milk is another personified character, and the Pink Milk of the title is a somewhat strained symbol of tainted motherhood – both bloodied breast milk and TB-infected cow’s milk. Despite what grown-ups think or say, logic does not apply in young Alan’s world. Young’s unruly script, rendered in a somewhat textureless blank verse, gallops along on a dizzy note of abandoned self-indulgence. Its utter whimsicality can be hard to swallow.

What it does have going for it though is a relentless strangeness, a bold insistence on its own terms. The cheap sense of fatalism and overwrought lyricism are suddenly disrupted by a break out of music and synchronized ensemble dancing. The actors huddle in a group as a clubby electronica pop permeates, and a staccato, mechanical choreography takes hold. Apropos nothing, rigid arm thrusting and stiff-necked twisting are enjoyed, and it’s clubland 1982 again. At once bizarrely appropriate, and yet inappropriate, these instances have a distinctive flair and contribute a signature with its own peculiar gravitas. The troupe of seven young performers are utterly down when it comes to these movement passages and the sequences are as compelling as they are perplexing.

It really is too bad for the play’s Chicago-based company, White Elephant, that they found themselves booked in to perform here at the Gene Frankel Theatre. Originally devised for a surrounded stage forum, the presentation suffers in Frankel’s compressed space and traditional stage-facing-audience format. Gamefully Elephant string a line of audience seats along the back and side walls of the performance area, but this doesn’t fully suffice as an answer. Worse still, the Frankel’s regulations regarding noise levels means the music is played at an absurdly low pitch during dance segments, as if an elderly relative were trying to sleep next door. Energy levels are impacted accordingly.

A hard working cast let none of this really stand in their way. Everyone gives it 100 percent, with stand-out contributions by Casey Hartley as “The Authority Figures”, and Joe McManus who, as Turing, struggles to put some humanity into an abstracted, romanticized central character. Young is very lucky in his cast, and perhaps even more so in the directorial hand of Brandon Powers, who propels all along at a headlong tilt with unpredictable turns. Powers is additionally credited as joint choreographer and, as such, it can safely be said that he’s helped save Pink Milk‘s bacon. The original, catchy, and entirely on point music is by Visager. Anyone looking for a mature reflection on the life and contribution of Alan Turing is advised to look elsewhere. But if intriguing performance, gay themes, and fantastical whimsy are your bag, you’ve come to the right place. Drink your milk.

~~~

Pink Milk
White Elephant
Writer: Alex Young
Director: Brandon Powers
Choreographer: Brandon Powers & ensemble
Movement, nosebleeds, electronica, and a talking daisy. Lonely gay genius Alan Turing builds robots to replace his lost love. PINK MILK, inspired by the father of Computer Science, explodes themes of creation, destruction and eternal love.
1h 40m   National   Chicago, Illinois
Drama   Dance
Staycation: In Someone Else’s Shoes   Ride the Rollercoaster of Love
www.pinkmilk2012.com
VENUE #09: The Gene Frankel Theatre
Fri 10 @ 9  Sun 12 @ 4:15  Wed 15 @ 2  Sat 18 @ 9  Sun 19 @ 2

Related Posts:

• Contrasts (Fringe Festival 2012)
• Dancing Into India – Being Becoming (Fringe Festival 2012)
• Snow White Zombie: Apocalypse – The End Is Nigh In Fairy Tale Land (Fringe Festival 2012)
• Punk Grandpa: 10 Things To Know About The Show Before You Go (2016 FRIGID NEW YORK FESTIVAL)
• For Body And Light (2014 Frigid New York Festival)

Even casual readers of The Happiest Medium know that when it comes to Company XIV and Austin McCormick I am reduced to a screaming fan-girl.  I am older, of course -not a girl, so my screaming is done on the inside (most of the time), but when it comes to this neo-baroque dance ensemble everything about them makes my heart race, my temperature elevate and my eyes tear up. Every time I walk through the doors of the theatre at Bond Street I shiver with antici ————————-pation about what will greet me – for here I have seen the most dazzling pieces of multi-media theatre I have ever experienced.  EVER.

This week Company XIV has been holding a workshop where Austin McCormick, Laura Careless and guest instructors have been showing gifted dancers the Company XIV way.   I will be moderating a discussion with Austin from 1.15pm-3pm tomorrow, Friday, March 9 at the Company XIV studio at 303 Bond Street, Brooklyn. If you’re free, come on down.  If you’re busy – break your plans.  Because after you read this, you’ll want to see this man in person.

I was lucky enough to be able to sit in on the workshop Tuesday afternoon and even though I was there for hours the time flew and my mind raced as I was captivated by what I saw unfold before me.  This opportunity was like a dream come true – akin to (I can only imagine) being able to go to spring training if you love baseball.  It’s watching your idol, your hero, behind the curtain, in the process of creating magic in a way that few ever get to experience.

I wish I could spend every day with Laura Careless and Austin McCormick.  Theirs is a world so opposite of mine – the world of breathing, movement, communing with your core – yourself, your space.  My world is about sitting, observing and then writing — hoping that my words adequately translate what I’ve experienced in a way that tantalized the readers.  And even though I meet dozens of people doing what I do, and even though I am part of a community and a team, it is rare that my actual work involves anyone other than me.

For anyone who has ever seen a Company XIV show there can be no question —  there is an energy, a type of spell that falls over the space where they dance, binding performers to audience.  McCormick (who conceives, directs and choreographs all his shows) blends eroticism with beauty, each movement somehow conveying ecstasy and anguish at the same time. It’s bitter and sweet – it’s longing and loss wrapped in joy and celebration.  Every time. Every time.

Very often when you meet your heroes they are so much less in person than they are from afar. They disappoint by being less spectacular up close – less of the magical creatures  you see from your seat in the dark.  Not so the members of Company XIV. Laura Careless, Sean Gannon and Austin McCormick are gorgeous in person – and I don’t mean on the spectrum of beauty, though they have that as well.  They are gorgeous because they shine with talent, with energy, with enthusiasm for what they do, and the eagerness to share it.  They glow with vitality, they glimmer with the fire that comes from doing what you love to do, and doing it well every time. They are warm, welcoming … they capture you with their spirit in person as much as they do from the stage.

On Tuesday I took my spot and first watched Laura Careless teach a class. I see something I can hardly put into words begin to happen; her class is beautiful and smooth, with moments of sudden release,  all done in this almost reverent environment of Austin’s studio/performance space.  The ambiance is as captivating as the class, beautiful old chandeliers light the room, coupled with natural daylight streaming in through the skylight.  The class takes place amid what’s left of the Snow White show I saw just a short while ago – a silver tree, glowing orbs of light.  It is both a dramatic effect and yet completely commonplace, for this (as I said) is 303 Bond street where everything is stunning.

I watch Laura’s class – her gestures are free, gorgeous, wild.  There was falling to the floor and springing to the feet, bouncing, twirling; with movements which students were interpreting  in their own style – some open and unrestrained, some tight and precise, but somehow all fitting together and looking amazing.

Laura ended her class with a meditation, one where each student was guided to thank their body for allowing it to give so much.  This simple gesture took my breath away; we often don’t thank ourselves for our own talents, we often don’t recognize what we do for ourselves, the gift we give ourselves.   And of course this gave me a moment to silently thank these dancers for giving me so much as well; perhaps they felt my thanks, perhaps they only felt the energy that increased in the room.

There was a break, but dancers dance.  Even between dancing, they dance.  They may not even know they do it, but dancers always dance.  I love that.

Up next was Austin’s workshop and here’s where I got to watch the master at work.

I work with words.  Words are fixed and I know what to expect from them, although I am often surprised by how a subtle pairing or combination will shade the meaning, giving a nuance I didn’t expect.  I love to play with words and find that sweet spot.   Austin McCormick has something  much more amazing and organic to work with of course, and because human beings are living and breathing and moving, they can contribute to his internal vision.  Watching Austin as he watched his vision come alive was an experience I’ll never forget.

He is sure and precise but completely at ease.  This is his element, there is no hesitation, no second guessing, no frustration.  With the help of  Laura  they take the dancers through the routine slowly at first. At times it’s so exquisite that it’s like hearing a word whispered slowly in French.  Keep in mind, this isn’t a dance class, this is a true workshop: a place where ridiculously talented people are learning the XIV way.  So I shouldn’t be astonished at how quickly the dancers pick up the spellbinding choreography, but I am.

It’s wonderful to be able to see how these pieces come to life, to see Laura talk through the movements alongside Austin.  She speaks automatically and without hesitation. She says things like “on your hands, BAM!, thread your knee, roll back, extend back with arch” She speaks with as much ease and grace as Olivier recited Shakespeare … “Slip, cross, step, grab leg, bring it in, hand to face”.

While I don’t pretend to ever have been a dancer – not even a 3 year old weekend jazz/tap baby – I can’t help but think that Austin has created a language all his own.  I listen as he directs the dancers to move with words like “snippety … to the heart” There’s a deep poetry to it that would put e.e. cummings to shame.  There are words like Ninja Ladies, Picture, Open Heart, Cowabunga. I love how it sounds. I love more how it looks.  I love most how it makes me feel.

Writing this story was easy; surprisingly so – it was as if Austin McCormick, Laura Careless and Sean Gannon had gotten hold of my hands and were choreographing my fingers.  I sat alone, up high in the bleachers, like a fly on the wall, watching these dancers and letting the creativity boomerang around the room, allowing it to somehow capture me in the energy as well.  Like a medium who goes into trance, I watched for hours and when I came home later that night and read what I’d written it was like I was reading my words for the first time.  Which proves my theory.  This  ability Austin McCormick has to create magic transcends dance. It reaches out and embraces, influences, and inspires all manner of artists, be they singers, dancers, actors or writers — of fiction or of fact.

I’ll end with a snippet of a song that was being played in the studio at some point while I was there. Again, simply because dancers dance even when they aren’t dancing, I couldn’t tell if they were on a break or working out a routine.  Of course it didn’t matter … and this song will tell you why:

When I was 12 years old, my father took me to the circus, the greatest show on earth.

There were clowns and elephants and dancing bears

And a beautiful lady in pink tights flew high above our heads.

And as I sat there watching the marvelous spectacle

I had the feeling that something was missing.

I don’t know what, but when it was over,

I said to myself, “Is that all there is to a circus?”

Is that all there is, is that all there is

If that’s all there is my friends, then let’s keep dancing

Let’s break out the booze and have a ball

If that’s all there is

~~~

I leave you once more with a reminder that tomorrow you’ll have a chance to attend the discussion I will be moderating with Austin McCormick 1.15pm-3pm on Friday, March 9 at the Company XIV studio at 303 Bond Street, Brooklyn.

See you there!

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What do cell phones, natural disasters, and the industrial revolution have in common? LOL: The End (written and performed by Michi Ilona Osato, Una Aya Osato, and Yoshimasa “Sen” Osato) sets out to investigate how the world got to where it is, starting with Man’s earliest domination over nature in order to create shelter, and ending with the isolation that can occur as Man becomes more and more enmeshed in the virtual world of hand-held devices.  Though there are less than a dozen words squeaked out in this dense multimedia interaction (which includes curated new media samples from YouTube, ultramodern kabukesque pieces of clowning, and interpretive dance) the message of this show is still clearly vital, diversified, and meaningful.

The central push of this piece is to show how our scramble for comfort is never-ending and essentially the more we have the more our smaller problems require higher costs to avoid them. The end of the world has never been so engrossing as with the physical comedy and funny dramatic redirections of the audience by Michi as the personification of Greed with its quest to maintain power over others. She sets us in our place while we have pity for Una’s embodiment of the innocence of the havenots around the world and throughout history.

As the story progresses we are given an evolving view and review showing that sometimes those who don’t have the most (or are the  meekest – or most friendly) can actually be  the great causers of  disaster even if they are also the most abused.   They are like drowning victims who will desperately pull down anyone or anything along with them as they sink to the bottom.  Yoshimasa, as the face of the Earth  (or more elusive “Nature”) shows how the earth is patient, but can be irritated at the ridiculousness of Man’s desire to remake the world into something safer and easier to control yet only manages to make it less stable.   While LOL is light-hearted in its depiction of our moves toward disaster, the overall message is more hard-hitting than many documentaries on the subject.  This is perhaps because we can identify with the characters so readily.  With so much meaning laden on so little verbal communication, kudos must be given to the director Moises Belizario who had a lot to orchestrate in this piece. With the sheer number and requirement for precise arrangement, stage manager Clarissa Ligon should get a shout out as well.  The multimedia portions of the show were divided between the sometimes driving and sometimes serene music of Yuri Ryback and Jordan Battiste, as well as by the careful video curation and editing done by Una Aya Osato and Michi Ilona Osato.

Performers from left to right: Una Aya Osato, Michi Ilona Osato, and their father Yoshimasa "Sen" Osato

The beginning of this play, I believe, was intentionally a bit alien and hard to understand; the mysticism of the past which ruled us is so much less in control now-a-days. The dialogue between the three on stage at first seems almost like an abstract dance celebrating color and emotion. By the end of the show the audience is shown a postapocalyptic world where humankind is reduced back to their primal state by a believable set of circumstances.

We see the dance with death, the wonder and the magic of how we react to the power of “disasters” celebrated again by those now newly primitive, echoing the beginning of the play.  In this beautiful yet horrifying dance toward the end, we see the black veil of death alternating with the bright red of fire, blue of water disasters, and even white of disasters of the air in a way that clearly shows the sort of fear modern people could find if our filters of  intervening media of various types were removed.  In this very much the-end-is-the-beginning-is-the-end sort of moment, we realize that most likely, no matter what we do, it is possible the world will go on even if civilization is swept aside by human carelessness.  It becomes quite humbling to see the end where everything returns back to square one, except for the relics of the past strewn around a new landscape.  Like the myths of giants who caused the mountains, the somber peace that enshrouded the audience after the rush of symbolic destruction was palpable.

The image of Yoshimasa as the calmed Earth Spirit in the end  covering his children with a dark veil, with a look of compassion yet a hint of bewilderment and the remaining covering of bright pink hair (representing I think the lasting spiritual miasma which would stay with the earth) that ends the play is  one that will stay with me for a long time.  Try to fit this show in if you can, and you will likely get a lot to reflect on for many days to come.

~~~

~~~

The 2012 FRIGID NEW YORK FESTIVAL will run February 22-March 4 at The Kraine Theater & The Red Room (85 East 4th Street between 2nd Ave and Bowery) and UNDER St. Marks (94 St. Marks Place between 1st Ave and Ave A). Tickets to all shows may be purchased online at www.FRIGIDnewyork.info or by calling Smarttix at 212-868-4444.

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The Knocking Within

ANIKAI Dance Theater
Texts from William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, MacBeth, Titus Andronicus and Othello
Selected and compiled by Wendy Jehlen
Direction, concept: Wendy Jehlen
Choreographer: Wendy Jehlen with Pradhuman Nayak

ANIKAI Dance Theater premieres “The Knocking Within,” a new text-based work looking at insanity and a dysfunctional relationship through texts from three of Shakespeare’s tragedies – Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello and Titus Andronicus.
The scenes will not play out in a linear manner, but rather will be woven into each other, so that the effect is of the disorientation of unmitigated mental illness and a relationship out of control, or is it the nightmares of two lovers?

Show Times:

• Tues 1/17 @ 6:00pm
• Fri 1/20 @ 8:30pm
• Sun 1/22 @ 3:00pm

Answers by Wendy Jehlen
Artistic Director
ANIKAI Dance

Karen Tortora-Lee’s Question
This is an international festival. What part of the world are you coming from … and will your show tantalize the NYC audience with a taste of your nation’s culture?
Wendy Jehlen:
We are from India and the US, by birth. However, this work, and all ANIKAI works, draws on influences and deep study of traditions from throughout the world. The subjects are also universal – dreaming, the space between waking and sleeping, relationship, love, fear. I believe that our work speaks to that culture of people who do not identify themselves with any one place, but rather with a global community.

Dianna Martin’s Question
Who is the greatest inspiration to you artistically?
Wendy Jehlen: It would be impossible to name just one person. We have both had so many influences and mentors. Much of this piece, believe it or not, was inspired by a few episodes of Radio Lab on NPR.

Geoffrey Paddy Johnson’s Question
What emerged as the greatest challenge during the development of this production?
Wendy Jehlen:Narrowing it down. The texts are so rich, as are the ideas we’ve been wrapping around them. It took us a while to settle into a structure, after which it flowed. I’m sure that we will make changes after this run, which is the premiere. After that we’ll be taking it to Boston, around India, and after that, who knows? The creative process is never over.

Antonio Minino’s Question
You’re in Times Square surrounded by the best Broadway houses and highest selling entertainment in the world. What resources are you utilizing to spread the word about your show and get butts in seats?
Wendy Jehlen: We’ve been using the Internet a lot, emails, Facebook, websites. It was listed in the Times under dance. I’m hoping that there will be curiosity about the breadth of influences and sources for the work, as was expressed in the Times listing. Also, this is a very intimate piece, and performing it for an intimate audience is perfect.
~~~

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Younger minds may find entertainment and diversion at 3 Ghosts, this stage musical adaptation of Charles Dickens‘ story, A Christmas Carol by Pipe Dream Theatre Productions. Everything about it resonates with an enthusiastic note of, well, glee. The attractive and animated cast strut and stand about stage looking very pleased with themselves, and the energy level is up; positive; high. They know enough to drop the smiles when the mood switches to somber – as the tale of a haunted, miserly materialist may necessitate – but you know it won’t be long before the scene is lit once more with those megawatt smiles, so de rigueur for the current generation of spotlight-hungry performers. And with an ensemble cast of forty plus, that’s a lot of light, a lot of energy. There are almost twenty musical performances, several involving choreographed dancers, and all on the modest sized stage at the Beckett Theatre. Just imagine the stage direction logistics alone!

More is more is the discernible aesthetic working here. Every actor and dancer’s costume is lovingly stitched, patched, distressed, flounced, bustled and ruffled well beyond any parameters that realism might allow. Styling itself “steampunk“, the production is utterly devoted to the notion of a theatrical world divorced from any day-to-day, humdrum existence. This is the world of musical theatre, after all, and everything is big, bold, brazen, and better. And therein, alas, lies the rub. In love with its own artificiality, it persistently overplays everything. In fairness, the theme of Time is given a thorough going-over, convincingly evoked dramatically and musically, but there’s something intrinsically callow about the perspective. Devoid of a hint of maturity, the entire production – music, direction, choreography, costumes, singing, dancing, and acting – is dramatically unsophisticated. 3 Ghosts looks very believably like what might occur if a group – maybe forty or so - of young people said, “hey kids, let’s put on a show!”

Ouch! I can hear the wrathful screams of young gleesters everywhere howling, “well, what’s wrong with that?” In truth, nothing; nothing’s wrong with that. But if older eyes are watching, older ears are listening, older minds attending, then they might observe: Given the enormous amount of work in developing a coherent musical narrative, why did the creators, Collin Simon and Liz Muller, set out to produce something that comes as close to resembling other recent Broadway style productions as they might dare? Is there such a thing as Broadway muzak? Was this set designed and constructed in one afternoon? Does this choreography read as generic? Has the makeup artist ever heard of soot? Can the director tell the difference between sweet and saccharine? Does the term “creative risk” play a part in the producers’ vocabulary? And, given the monumental efforts at play by all parties involved, why, why, why aim so low in the first place? Youthful enthusiasm can overcome many obstacles but not, finally, creative timidity and conceptual immaturity.

~~~

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