FRINGE 2019: 2 amazing DANCE shows
Swipe
Stage 4 (King Edward Elementary School)
A few years back an inventive local dance company called Synaethesis Dance Theatre came up with a movement experience called Letters & Words. At its base, it was really a dance show but the company made it much more. It was a multimedia marvel – an immersing theatrical adventure that used music, projections, written words, spoken words, sounds and effects to create a fresh approach to an old art form. They were nominated for a Sterling Award.
The company has returned this year’s Fringe with a new experience that pushes to the outer limits. They ambitiously set out to “explore the impact of social media on our lives.” The seven dancers (Camille Ensminger, Leah Paterson, Bonnie Douglas, Mpoe Mogale, Michelle Bibeau, Samantha Kuzio, and Lauren Hall) make up in creativity, movement and ingeniousness for the big-budget special effects that such a concept might otherwise demand. The dancing is amazingly precise, and it may be modern in execution, but is solidly based in classical technical mastery. The instant light and sound cues are an example of how the company concentrates on detail. The carefully selected layered soundtrack for Swipe is brilliant and could exist as its own entity.
It begins in darkness with the painful cacophony of electronic music and the general discord of life today. If there is one symbol predominant in the next hour, it is the ubiquitous cell phone. The first dance has the performers whirling about the stage entranced with the glowing devices held aloft in their hands. Later, one anguishes over her looks in a selfie while asking, “What’s my best side?” A voice sings the old standard You Take My Breath Away while a performer fawningly dances with her beloved phone. Meanwhile, a short distance away, another finds her ecstasy in the world around her.
In Swipe, the company assaults us with the sound and images of today, while suggesting that we are losing much of what makes us human. At a point near the end, they all join hands as an unseen singer plaintively intones, I Remember Touch.
The images are vivid and you will have little difficulty in understanding the message of this affecting and involving hour.
5 out of 5
