http://velocitydancecenter.org Seattle WA Tue, 08 May 2012 00:20:28 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 http://velocitydancecenter.org/about/people/comment-page-1/#comment-42 OtB’s Northwest New Works Festival, Take Two (Review) | The SunBreak Wed, 22 Jun 2011 20:20:55 +0000 http://localhost:8888/wordpress/?page_id=146#comment-42 [...] Shannon Stewart‘s A Better Container contained a more perplexing combination of an almost David Lynchian introduction (to a crooner’s song, a woman in a ’60s dress dances with her back to you, her ’60s hair cascading down, then turns to reveal a face that’s also obscured by hair, at which point you inevitably think of Cousin It) and a physical rewind (either through generations, or one woman’s life). The crooner, a glamorously white-suited Sam Mickens, intrudes into this space, too, singing a fragment of song as if unaware he’s a record skipping, and old console TVs display a shadowy glimpse of his performance (Adam Sekuler did the video work). The women (Marissa Rae Niederhauser, Shannon Stewart, Lenore Waldon, and Ellie Hughes) walk backwards diagonally across the stage (then hotfoot it from the wings through the lobby and back around, to enter again in an unbroken line), transmitting movements to each other, snapping heels down, reaching for invisible things. This proceeds for longer, I thought, than is necessary to get the idea. But then Niederhauser leads Stewart (I think) by her arm into a duet of sorts, and you feel at last that something is happening other than reverie, even if you are not sure what it is. [...] [...] Shannon Stewart‘s A Better Container contained a more perplexing combination of an almost David Lynchian introduction (to a crooner’s song, a woman in a ’60s dress dances with her back to you, her ’60s hair cascading down, then turns to reveal a face that’s also obscured by hair, at which point you inevitably think of Cousin It) and a physical rewind (either through generations, or one woman’s life). The crooner, a glamorously white-suited Sam Mickens, intrudes into this space, too, singing a fragment of song as if unaware he’s a record skipping, and old console TVs display a shadowy glimpse of his performance (Adam Sekuler did the video work). The women (Marissa Rae Niederhauser, Shannon Stewart, Lenore Waldon, and Ellie Hughes) walk backwards diagonally across the stage (then hotfoot it from the wings through the lobby and back around, to enter again in an unbroken line), transmitting movements to each other, snapping heels down, reaching for invisible things. This proceeds for longer, I thought, than is necessary to get the idea. But then Niederhauser leads Stewart (I think) by her arm into a duet of sorts, and you feel at last that something is happening other than reverie, even if you are not sure what it is. [...]

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