For those in Seattle, dumb type is doing four performances this week at On The Boards:
http://www.ontheboards.org
-Tim
-----Original Message-----
From: M Mercer <vletrmx@hotmail.com>
To: idm@hyperreal.org <idm@hyperreal.org>
Date: Sunday, March 03, 2002 7:47 PM
Subject: [idm] dumbtype, MCA Chicago
I was fortunate enough to land tickets for two of the elusive dumbtype
performances here in Chicago this weekend. I was only loosely familiar with
them as a performance group although I've followed much of Ryoji Ikeda's
audio for the past few years.
Suffice it to say that this was the best performance I've ever seen. Ever.
It was phenomenal. As I understand it these performance are only one side of
the dumbtype collective although they've perfected it. I've never before
seen modern dance work in such harmony with experimental audio, let alone
video, lighting, costume, voiceovers, etc....
They were performing "memorandum" this time around, which has been available
on CD for some time now. The piece revolves around the idea of memory, time,
circular narratives, and/or nostalgia. The piece is paced incredibly well,
beginning with projected words (fragments of a bedtime story) upon which a
projection showed the dumbtype dancers (filmed from above the stage in
real-time) "scaling" the words like a climbing wall (when they were actually
wriggling across the stage below on their bellies). The theme "How did it
end again?" is introduced in this prologue and is met with a shuddering wall
of sound courtesy of Ikeda. This gave way a series of fast, broken images
and fragments of phrases projected in a crazy, hyper-sequenced video stream,
in front of which the dumbtype dancers engaged in kinetic, energy-infused
dance movements. The sound was almost overwhelming, along with the REM-speed
imagery and dance motions... only to segue into a series of more relaxed,
occasionally humorous (but still mostly lacking in any sort of vocal
content) vignettes that all strung together like dream sequences. Pieces of
childhood memories, with a sort of creepy tinge, played into many of the
segments along with projected writings about stories and memories in the
form of diagrams and drawings. There is much more to the show, but feeling
still somewhat overwhelmed by it all I will spare you a vague complete
summary of each part.
The dumbtype troupe managed to incorporate a wealth of images, sounds,
phrases, ideas and movements into one beautifully executed production.
Everything tied together in a way that is (as you can probably tell)
difficult to describe, with a keen sense of dynamics and how to lull the
audience into a comfort zone, only to shatter it with a blast of white noise
or a scattering of unintelligible imagery. (Or a cute teddy bear, as the
case may be)
I located dumbtype online just now at
http://dt.ntticc.or.jp/index.html#front .... if you are in minneapolis,
portland or seattle, I highly recommend checking this piece out. You will
not be disappointed. I think they are doing some European dates after they
finish here in the States, too.
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