"...a humorous and engaging work"

July 20, 2006 performance, reviewed by Connell McGrath

Berkshire Fringe is a new alternative arts festival in Great Barrington that presents works by emerging and early career artists. Much of the work they're presenting falls into more than one category of art, such as this week's premier of "All Day Permanent Red" by Spine. This is part-video-art, performance-art-dance, and it ends the rules of each of those genres.

Spine is a five person company of young performers. Their work is irreverent and engaging. "All Day Permanent Red" is made up of 3 parts, some of them older work that has been reworked for this new, larger piece. "Solotango" was written and choreographed by Cory Nakasue with video by Brent Felker. The problem I always have with video/dance works is that the 2 events compete with each other for my attention. In the case of "Solotango," there's a video to watch, projected somewhat high on the backdrop, of a man giving tango lessons, except the lesson morphs into weird movement and odd other bits of seemingly discontected action. On stage, dancer Kristen Revier wrestles with a chair, sometimes following the instructions in the video. Over all is a narrator talking Tango and platitudes about the downside of competition.

Next comes "TangQled Rootz...Silent Q." choreographed and danced by Eric Lorico (tango dance instuctor from the video) and John Medina. They do strange variations on tango, acrobatics, and interesting weight-sharing movement. All this to great tango music.

The final section of the work is "The Ring" by Cory Nakasue and performed by Cory, Brent Felker, and Kristen Revier. Great variety of music for this piece including a 70s pop hit by The Carpenters. "The Ring" is energetic, dramatic, and at times disturbing, with depictions of violence. This aspect is softened by the dancers' humor and abstraction.

"All Day Permanent Red" studiously avoids most dance vernacular, and uses gesture and physical events from other walks of life, such as the start of a race, the beginning of a sumo wrestling match, and the gestures of a football referee, as well as other, less sports/competition oriented motion. It is a humorous and engaging work about conflict, personal image, and relationship.

Bazaar Productions Inc / The Berkshire Fringe | berkshirefringe.org
(413)320-4175
PO Box 226
Stockbridge, MA 01262