Tools
Street Eats
- Northwest Hiphop Rockets to the Top: Major Players Break Down the Scene
- Other Breaking-Talent Hiphop Events of Note
- The Meaning of Clothes: A Thread Runs from Fashion to Art
- Huffing the Spoken Word: Choice Literary Inhalants
- Dance Picks: Moody Movements
- Theater Preview: Super Stagings
- The Original Tripper: Donovan Sets the Tone for Narcotic Sonic
- Look and Listen: Ben Rubin Gives Shape to Sound
- The Impresario: Warren Etheredge Makes a Safe Haven for Film Fanatics
- Shorty McShortersons: The 1 Reel Film Fest Puts On a Show
- Pizzazz!
- Blow Your Mind Wide Open: Expansive Hiphop from the New and Old Schools
- Pharmaceutical Pop: The Dandy Warhols Bring It in Spades
- Boo-Tay-Licious: Bobby Bare Jr.'s Advice on the Birds and the Beeyotches
- All You Need to Know About the Ink Spot: But Were Too Confused to Ask--Plus, What to See and When
- Hot or Snot?: The Deeper Question of Who's Hotter, Writers or Rock Stars?
- Advice for Young People: From Musicians Who Know Better
- Poet vs. Poet: Andrei Codrescu and Sheri-D Wilson square off in Bumbershoot's Heavyweight Poetry Bout
- SELECT SHOWS: For Your Listening Pleasure and Pain
- SELECT ART: For Your Visual Pleasure (no pain)
Lingo dancetheater
Sunday, 7:45-8:45 pm, Biringer Farm Charlotte Martin Theatre
Stranger Personals
Selections from On the Boards' Northwest New Works
Sunday, 3:45-5:15 pm, Biringer Farm Charlotte Martin Theatre
Hiphop culture rules the contemporary pop airwaves, but choreographer Rennie Harris wants to bring it into the highbrow halls of cutting-edge performance--or, in this case, the stage of brand-new McCaw Hall. While Harris' Legends of Hip-Hop may be the biggest name of Bumbershoot's dance offerings, there are two local companies offering sterling work.
If you like your art tidy and focused, Lingo dancetheater's Speak to Me is not for you. This 70-minute work is packed, even cluttered, with ideas, springing from the mind of artistic director KT Niehoff and her superb ensemble. Everything relates to language and communication, but the interplay of language and choreography varies; some sections seem to use spoken words simply as a soundtrack, while in other sections the speech is as significant as it might be to a play. For example, in one bit, Niehoff lip-synchs to the recorded voice of Reggie Watts while another dancer manipulates her arms in a variety of conversational gestures. Everyone's dressed like schoolteachers or office administrators; at one point, they gyrate and flip while holding pencils in their mouths. Two dancers bicker, underscoring movement that suggests flirting, fighting, and finally an exhaustion both emotional and physical.
Everything has the offhanded sexiness that's a trademark of Lingo dancetheater; it seems to spring from the way their limbs splay with casual, almost lazy precision as bodies cascade and whirl. Toward the end, after an abundance of words and percussion, a duet performed in near silence seems almost unbearably sad and lonely. The friction in between word and movement in Speak to Me is sometimes subtle, sometimes dynamic, sometimes pointless--but by the end, this ambitious piece has grown into something dense, jagged, and richly stimulating.
Foot in Mouth also strives to make what you hear as significant as what you see, but features no language at all. In Go Ahead Fire Me, one of three featured pieces in Selections from On the Boards' Northwest New Works, two dancers turn daily rituals--from putting on deodorant to taking a smoke break--into an abstracted, semi-mechanical struggle of getting through the day. Meanwhile, two vocalists sit poised like receptionists or dispatchers, sampling their voices live, looping and layering them into a strangely industrial accompaniment. The piece is fairly short, but it packs a lot of wit, virtuosity, and some startling intimacy into that brief span of time.
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