Dances for a Small Stage 20, BC

Saw the program B, most of it, of Dances for a Small Stage.

Not great. In fairness, showing up after 3 hours at the Alibi room sampling the taps was ill-planned, its hard to focus, and the darkness puts me to sleep.

Still, the pieces, not so great.

1. Cori Caulfield - not sure what the point was, it seemed to be "I'm really hot, and I have a tiny top", which is true, but not such great dance, mostly a prolonged wiggle.


2. A piece not on the online program, choreographed by Crystal Pite?, also not too sure what the point was, maybe "pink wigs with four foot hair are cool, and I'm beautiful", which is true, but the movement was only a bit more interesting than the first.


3. Tedd Robinson - he's weird! Budha statues in suit cases! Fans, blowing blue feathers, strange oriental kimonos, and done by the time he walked to the center of the stage. WTF? But who cares, not boring, not pretentious, then its over!


4. Wen Wei Wang- "I've got a rose sticking out of my pants like a hardon, and I'm rubbing little pink shoes up and down my crotch - are you wondering what's going on?". Uh, yeah, I am.


5. Chengxin Wei - "I can dance". Ok. Why?

Mostly, I don't ask "why", because the answer should be "why not?". Not everything needs a purpose. But once I'm bored, I start to. Its not clear why some people are on stage. Dancers are a pleasure to see, they move well, they've years of training, incredibly fit... but thats not enough reason to show up on stage. Or maybe it is, but not enough reason for me to watch.

briefencounters

http://www.tomorrowcollective.com/brief-encounters

Hm. Short pieces.

I'll go Tuesday night.

I've seen one of these before. Some of the pieces should be good, and the others should be short. Also, the ANZA club has beer. Good beer.

============

Ok. Saw the show. Well, they had lousy beer. Don't drink the beer.

But the show was great!

Incredibly eclectic. Almost no dance. Some video, a chef, a great piece that attempts to rehabilitate Michael Jackson, crazy costumes, and the three girls who presented did a rotating presentation of clothes from local designers. Short skirts are back in, which is never bad. And did I mention the chef? I've never seen culinary art performed like that.

It is showing April 23rd and 24th, too.

Spoken word/Body, Martin Belanger, Round House, Vancouver

We saw Martin Belanger at the Vancouver International Dance Festival Friday night. Apparently Julie knows him from Montreal, went to school with him, or something.

It was a really strong performance. He presented a series of thoughts on the development of movement in technological times (maybe the only place where our physical movement is still important is "sex, dance, and sports"), and his accompanying movement sometimes illustrated, sometimes not, his words. Very informal, and very thought-provoking.

He's an amazing dancer, and the music (partially mixed live on stage with him by his accompanying technician, who he interacted with during the presentation) was pretty varied and interesting.

Of course, if you haven't seen it already, you've missed it!