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Minneapolis, Minnesota
When everything in the world seems to be going wrong, it is easy to overlook the things that are going right.
Things will be going very right for the four artistic co-directors of Live Action Set when they head to Campinas, Brazil, Jan. 27, for three weeks of study, collaboration, and preparation for their debut at the Guthrie Theater in June.
The directors, Noah Bremer, Megan Odell, Galen Treuer, and Vanessa Voskuil, will study together in week-long workshops with the collaborative, physical theater artists of Lume Teatro, located in the Barão Geraldo district of Campinas.
Although the trip was not planned for the middle of Minnesota’s most biting winter in years, none of the quartet are complaining about the prospect of Campinas’ tropical climate and temperatures in the 80s and 90s. Their timing also will allow them to participate in Brazil’s Carnaval, ending on the eve of Ash Wednesday, Feb. 24.
The travelers see the trip as a rare opportunity for themselves as individual artists and as an organization. "The four of us have never had the opportunity to train together, to focus on growing, and learning a shared performance vocabulary,” said Treuer.
“We are very much looking forward to spending some focused time away, studying, and doing some research for our next performance at the Guthrie Theater."
With a population exceeding one million, Campinas is a city and county in the state of São Paulo on Brazil’s southeastern coast. It hosts an international business presence by the likes of IBM, Motorola, Nortel, Compaq, 3M, Texas Instruments, and Honda, among many others.
During two decades, the Lume company has become a global magnet for theater and dance artists interested in studying clown, Butoh, Noh, Kabuki, and other styles within an atmosphere of collaboration and exchange. In addition to its workshops, the company creates and performs original productions, touring with them to more than 20 countries to-date.
The Live Action Set artists will devote four hours daily to classes, followed by hours of thematic, physical, and language research needed to develop their latest original production, “My Father’s Bookshelf.”
“My Father’s Bookshelf” is a new work about dementia, neuroscience, and the mortality of families. This original play is a mix of family drama and gentle humor, interlaced with a neuroscientist’s passionate lecture on Alzheimer's.
It will be the company’s 13th production since the four artistic directors began creating ensemble-driven performances in 2003. Their work has been a favorite of Fringe Festival audiences and others at several Twin Cities venues.
The Brazilian adventure is supported by a Travel & Study Grant from the Jerome Foundation and additional, individual fundraising. Live Action Set’s artists will share their experience with other Minnesota artists in a two-day workshop in Minneapolis, Mar. 21-22.
[Related Minnesota Mist post.]
My Father’s Bookshelf will be presented in the Guthrie’s Dowling Studio, 818 S. 2nd Street, Minneapolis, June 18-28. Single tickets are priced from $18 to $30, with opening night seats at $34. Tickets are on sale through the Guthrie Box Office at 612.377.2224, toll-free 877.44.STAGE, and online at www.guthrietheater.org.
Minneapolis, Minnesota
DRP Dance is presenting Modern Muses, a work in seven movements, in the 2008 Minnesota Fringe Festival. This year marks DRP’s third appearance in the Fringe. It is my first encounter with the modern dance choreography of its founder, Danielle Robinson-Prater. Attending one of five performances at the Southern Theater in Minneapolis is a perfectly pleasant way to spend 45 minutes.
The opening segment, set to Arvo Part, introduces four dancers – Joanie Mix, Jill Hargreaves Murphy, Sara Stevenson Scrimshaw, and Gretchen Talbot – and their program. Black costumes and momentary pools of white light produce a classical set of images in a series of movement vignettes spaced around the stage.Three solos follow, labeled in order as the muses of hope, knowledge, and conflict. Hargreaves Murphy dances first, to Mozart, in a lyrical movement that mines the music’s timing smoothly and without complexity. Stevenson Scrimshaw takes the stage next with musical backing by Villa Lobos. She is followed by Mix, whose accompaniment by the electronic music artist Aphex Twin does not suggest conflict.
While the musical tempo picks up in a second full-group section – again, Aphex Twin – the collective movement tempo does not, although individual dancers give evidence of matching the music. This section sports the only few moments when the dancers show any uncertainty about the choreography. Talbot's subsequent solo as the Muse of Passion has an internal, organic feel that embodies the music by the Welsh composer Karl Jenkins more effectively than was the case for the group finale.
Robinson-Prater has a good sense of choreographic structure but command of a limited movement vocabulary. After a few minutes of viewing, one has the feeling of seeing the same dance repeated to different music. This choreographer and her dancers work hard. She is capable of much greater accomplishment, as are they.
In future, someone needs to proofread the printed program for spelling and the inclusion of last names for production personnel. Yes, the Fringe is a somewhat informal affair in the heat of August, but God lives in the details!
DRP Dance and Modern Muses continue at the Southern Theater, 1420 Washington Ave., S., Minneapolis, Aug. 9 @ 10pm and Aug. 10 @ 7pm. Admission: $12 + one-time purchase of a $3 Fringe Festival button.
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Too many artists or their organizations presume a mantle of uniqueness in asserting that their work boldly goes where none have gone before: pushing boundaries, exploring new worlds, and creating new vocabularies or tomes in whatever discipline they pursue. Would, for the integrity of their p.r., that it was true.
Wisely, the four principals of Live Action Set – Noah Bremer, Megan Odell, Galen Treuer, and Vanessa Voskuil – avoid the overblown claims of such claptrap. They understand that the embodiment of their creativity must be innovative to them and its presentation delivered with accomplished and engaging conviction. They "get" that their collective motivation produces an "intangible creative synergy" distinct from their individual possibilities.
The results of their approach can be seen in Deviants, an engrossing, 70-minute offering in this year's Minnesota Fringe Festival. The show is a re-working of material presented at the Red Eye Theater in 2007.
Deviants is a work of intelligence by young adults, for adults of all ages, that easily could have become trite and facile. In a non-linear format, it examines constructions of the acceptable and the deviant, the desired and the repressed. Some of the forbidden fantasies-turned-obsessions, along with their real or imagined imagery, may challenge some viewers.
The genius of Deviants, if you will, may be found in its successful creation of an alternate reality and the ability of a very talented cast to transport an audience to its realms. The ensemble launches the journey using all of the raw, warehouse space of The Soap Factory, including trapdoors and pillars. While the pillars become an integral part of the set and scene, they pose an unacceptable barrier to sightlines.
The members of Live Action Set, with their varied backgrounds in theater and dance, have forged a cohesive, collective character that accents the strengths of each individual. Their future foraging across the artistic landscape will be welcome.
They are worthy successors to the ensemble of artists formerly known as Theatre de la Jeune Lune in Minneapolis (and, formerly, Paris). The work presented by the Set at the Soap Factory echoes the fascinating, early-1980s productions by Jeune Lune in the Seven Corners neighborhood of Minneapolis. Jeune Lune's founders shared an aesthetic background in their training at the Ecole Jacques Lecoq. Although the founders of the Set do not share a similar set of experiences, their bond is a shared sensibility and a commitment to ensemble-driven outcomes.
Jeune Lune collapsed in financial distress last month, nearly 30 years after its first Minneapolis performance. Interestingly, Robert Rosen, a co-founder of Jeune Lune, served as director and co-creator of Deviants (and, Rosen and Bremer both studied at the Dell'Arte International School of Physical Theater in California).
Whatever their longevity together, one can wish the artists of Live Action Set a happy and productive life of continued creativity.
Deviants continues at The Soap Factory, 518 2nd Street SE, Minneapolis. Aug. 5-10 @ 7pm; Aug. 8 & 9 @ 8:30pm; and Aug. 9 @ 5:30pm. Tickets: $12 + one-time purchase of Fringe Festival button for $3.
Minneapolis, Minnesota
If you have not submitted your advertising banner to the website of the Minnesota Fringe Festival by now, you are out of luck. It is one of the lowest cost deals in town and, between now and mid-August, the Fringe's will be one of the top five most active websites in Minnesota!
The festival runs 11 days, July 31 - Aug. 10, at numerous venues in the Uptown, West Bank, Northeast, and North Loop neighborhoods of Minneapolis. At least 1,000 artists will present more than 800 performances of 156 different shows, aided by 400 volunteers.
As a sassy teenager of 15, the Fringe has outgrown the pangs of its 1993 birth, delivered with a loan from the Cedar Riverside Business Association. It now is the Midwest's largest performing arts festival, and the largest nonjuried and uncensored Fringe in the U.S.
As my friend, John Munger, noted on his blog, Going Through the Movements, the Fringe "offers more dance in 11 days than any part of the [Twin Cities] dance community offers at any other time of the year." He has the statistics to prove it. I intend to see at least three of this year's dance offerings.
Live Action Set is creating some of the freshest and most engaging work in town these days. Its show, Deviants, will play at The Soap Factory, with a cast including Noah Bremer, Megan Odell, Robert Rosen, Galen Treuer, and Vanessa Voskuil. These are the folks who brought us the 2005 Fringe hit Please Don't Blow Up Mr. Boban.
Last year, Penelope Freeh presented one of the strongest shows in the Fringe. This year's offering is small aïda, a two-woman show for herself and Stephanie Fellner, to be performed at Theatre de la Jeune Lune.
DRP Dance will make its third Fringe appearance with Modern Muses at the Southern Theater. It features four women performing choreography by Danielle Robinson-Prater.
The maximum ticket price for any Fringe show is $12, plus a one-time button purchase for $3. A complete schedule for the festival is at www.fringefestival.org.
