May 19-25, 2005

mixpicks

Totem Request Live

by A.D. Amorosi

performance

I may never have been a Boy Scout, thank God, but I loves me a show in a tent. If you remember the too- brief Fire Dance sequence in the otherwise treacly Dances With Wolves, that combination of indigenous music and visual elements carries over into "Spirit: The Seventh Fire," a live-performance spectacle and celebration of Native American culture that pitches its tepee this week. Blame musician-composer Peter Buffett (billionaire investor Warren's kid, not Jimmy's cousin, phew) for his

Wish You Were Here-era Pink Floyd take on Native American culture and practice. Combine that with over 80 drummers, choir singers, Native American dancers and flautists to produce a $3 million circus-like production, including National Geographic IMAX footage screened onto every surface, flat and curved.

In the process of incorporating sacred texts into the show, Buffett teamed with Chief Hawk Pope, with whom he worked on 500 Nations, the Costner/CBS-produced history of Indian nations. Here, the story takes on Native American traditionalism and customs as well as the personal ancestry, good and bad, of Pope's chosen subjects. Whether or not this makes Buffett and Pope a hippie version of Webber and Rice is one thing. But "Spirit" manages a thoughtful take on an American culture that somehow gets swept under the rug. And if you don't care for a circus with meaning and truth, you can always think of "Spirit" as Cirque du Soleil without French people. I'm there already.

Spirit: The Seventh Fire, May 20-July 4, Fri., May 20, 7:30 p.m.; Sat., May 21, 4 and 7:30 p.m.; Sun., May 22, 1 and 5 p.m.; Tue.-Wed., May 24-25, 7:30 p.m.; $20-$60, Lemon Hill, Fairmount Park, Sedgely and Lemon Hill drives, 215-336-2000, www.spirit7thfire.com.