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Also this issue: Blair Brown First Friday Focus Signs of the Times Rising to the Challenge James Wyeth Artsbeat Trapeta B. Mayson The Flaming Idiots |
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February 6-12, 2003
artpicks
When a dance troupe¹s often called "the daredevils,! you know it¹s not doing pokey introspective modern dance. Doug Varone and Dancers didn¹t win five Bessies (New York Dance and Performance Awards) doing pokey. Varone¹s a risk-taker with a company of eight like-minded performers. The showpiece of his local Dance Celebration performance is definitely Ballet Mecanique, which uses a famous silent movie score created by George Antheil in 1926. The music wasn¹t used for the film, or even performed until 1999 because it took that long for technology to catch up with Antheil, who scored the work for 16 synchronized player pianos, three xylophones, seven electric bells, three airplane propellers and a siren. The sound produced is described with words like "cacophonous.! The dance is performed amid moving scenic projections in black and white by Wendall K. Harrington of Lion King fame, oblique references to the silent film written to accompany the score and the "industrial! images of the film¹s celebration of machines. Plus, Varone and friends perform "Natural as Breathing,! a bluesy dance-club number, and "Possession,! which builds its intensity against Phillip Glass¹ "Concerto for Violin and Orchestra.! Leave your Polartec at home, Varone will warm you up just fine.
Doug Varone and Dancers, Thu.-Sat., Feb. 6-8, $28-$36, Annenberg Center, 3680 Walnut St., 215-898-3900.
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