Review- What I Dance With When I Do The Environmental Dance- Environmental Dance Theatre
22-12-12
By: Meaghan McGurgan
Email received at 3:30pm on Thursday.
"Dear Editor, We're doing a show tonight at the Cattleyards called What I Dance With When I Do the Environmental Dance. It's free and we would really like you to come out and write about it. You can even hate on it. We just want people to come out and see what we do." Challenge accepted.
Sure, the request was sent really late but I found myself with nothing to do on Thursday night and it's free! I really like it when people just do shows simply for people's enjoyment in town. The Cattleyards is also one of my favorite places to see theatre in town. It's a bit of a hike to get to but some of the best shows I've seen in town have been there. I also love it's a refurbished slaughter house. Gotta love a theatre with a bit of seedy history to it.
What I Dance With When I Do the Environmental Dance was set up like a salon show. It was separate scenes that changed based on the environment in which the performers were set. It had improvisational tenancies to it. It has no hard core themes to it or plot lines. There were no characters. It also had very few audience members attending due to the small space; there were probably 25 people there at the max. For those of you wondering what environmental dance is... Environmental Dance is where a dance is inspired by the location in which a performer decides to dance. Hence, environmental dance. A change in venue locale, time, lighting, sound, floor texture will change the type of dance. It has an element of improv in it.
This show was very casual. This doesn't mean the show wasn't good or the artists weren't talented. It was basically dancers showing off their stuff in different spaces. I liked the audience interaction moments in the piece. I thought the sound design was good. But I appreciate it when people in town try experimental or new things. This show was definitely an original piece put together with a wish and gaffer tape. There was no flash or high tech in this piece. There wasn't even a program or a flyer. But due to the fact it was free you can let a lot of those things slide. When you do a show with no ticket price you can get away with a lot more stuff than when you put a price tag on admission.
Costumes were simple and honestly looked like they had been pulled from the performer's closets. This show was definitely done on little to no budget. But it was entertaining and definitely worth the trip out the Cattle Depot. The dancers had good technique and good intentions. It was entertaining. Maybe not for everybody because of the lack of traditional methods in it but I enjoyed myself and would recommend it to people who enjoy modern dance.
What I Dance With When I Do the Environmental Dance has one more free show at the Cattle Depot. For more information click here.
Comments
Hin
Thank you for coming!
23 December 2012