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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2008 > May > 05
Monday, May 5, 2008
Fusebox review: Scott Heron and Hijack
Scott Heron and dance duo Hijack have a paradoxical ability to seem both more and less than human. The New Orleans-based solo performer and Minneapolis-based dancers were a sensitive and hilarious inclusion in the Fusebox Festival, performing Saturday afternoon at Salvage Vanguard Theatre.
The concert began as Heron, wearing a dress, crooned “Desperado” while playing a synthesizer. Kristin Van Loon darted about the theater, occasionally stopping to stroke her blue vinyl belt. Heron eventually joined her, the two embarking on a chase circling around a small log. Finally they sit and pose, ready for either a family portrait or glamour shot.
Things only got funnier when Van Loon and the other half of Hijack, Arwen Wilder, scuttled onto stage wrapped in fleece blankets held up by a series of belts for “Guerrilla Gay Bar”. Van Loon and Wilder proceed through jerky isolations, moving like robots, except for soft, caressing hand gestures. The music skips through portions of R. Kelly’s “Trapped in the Closet,” sampling, according to program notes, “only the positive lyrics.”
Hijack and Heron come together for “Stacked Double Cow,” which has the most pedestrian feel of the collaboration’s repertory. As the group moves through lots of walking phrases and climbs all over each other, they seem the contemporary heir apparent to the Judson Theater movement, the 1970s dancers and choreographers who questioned what constitutes dance, including more movement from the sidewalk than the stage in work. Whatever Hijack and Heron might be classified as, their work is funny, compelling and queer. As I watch, I don’t care that I’m never quite sure what’s going on.
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Fusebox review: Field Guide: Dance in the US pt. 2
He sat there like a satyr in repose. One man, wearing only nude briefs and an incredibly lifelike deer head, sat in a rocking chair. The slow sway of the chair was only interrupted by an occasional hand reaching up to scratch the deer head’s neck.
Portland-based dance theater group Teeth, who closed Fusebox Festival’s “Field Guide: Dance in the US pt. 2” at Salvage Vanguard Theatre on Thursday with the piece “Rash,” is funny, and oh so strange.
In stark juxtaposition to the man/deer’s calm, Angelle Hebert seemed near the brink, as she used her fingers to pry open her mouth. Her screams and facial contortions, accompanied by an electronic smash-up of sounds, only ended when she placed her head on the man/deer’s lap. She found a humorous sort of peace there. Me too.
Other works on the program expanded the category of dance beyond the usual Austin fare. In “Falling Up,” Heather Maloney and John Beauregard questioned what constitutes limitation and possibility onstage. Beauregard, who uses a wheelchair, used a rope tied across the stage a foot above the ground to pull himself along on his back, while Maloney bent and twisted herself over the rope.
Sarah Gamblin and Jordan Fuchs’ duet “Not in But Here” had a rich, full quality, largely due to Gamblin’s ability to carve through air with every available inch of her body. Even her fingertips are part of the dance.
The program also included the comedic, pleasantly smooth Austin-based Elsewhere Dance Theatre in “Playing Nice.”
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Review: ‘Much Ado About Nothing’
In “Much Ado About Nothing,” new management and new direction grace the old Zilker Park stage for Ann Ciccolella’s *first turn at *Austin Shakespeare née Festival’s free summer performance. It’s a first step in the right direction, to be sure, but there are still plenty more to take.
Most important are pacing and attention to language. The first third of the play lags due to line problems, an unwillingness to trust in Shakespeare’s words and frequently lugubrious delivery. For example, the men’s deception of Benedick is one of Shakespeare’s finest comic moments. With built-in gags for four lovable characters, the Bard mines bit of comic gold and puts it in the hands of the actors. Unfortunately, it gets slowed down and tripped up for a fumble here.
The next scene, essentially the same joke for the play’s women, almost always suffers for its repetition. Here, though, it shines. Beth Burns is incredibly winning as the often under-served serving woman Ursula, warming up to the prank slowly and then exuding glee.
What follows — from a steady stream of smart, touching moments between Matt Radford as Benedick and Babs George as Beatrice to a Three Stooges police force led by improviser Les McGehee — goes a long way to make up for the unsteady introduction.
Here’s hoping the production’s transition is emblematic of Austin Shakespeare’s.
(“Much Ado About Nothing” continues at 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays through May 25 and 2 p.m. on May 11 at Zilker Park’s Sheffield Hillside Theater. Free. www.AustinShakespeare.org.
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