Neuman!

Justin Jones was excellent in the role of patient ballboy/sushi chef/custodian of the games.The boys from Brooklyn– Matt Citron and Chris Yon– were completely great: Matt’s voice in the beginning is as sincere as the butoh-baseball ending by Neal Medlyn, whose intriguing bio includes performances with unicorns. and being the Paris Hilton of Performance Art (wow, last week Britney Spears, this week Paris Hilton. This blog has all the train wreck blondes. And don’t tell me to leave them alone, Campbell, because I never will).

David Neuman’s feedforward has tons going for it, first and foremost a fantastic, versatile, talented group of performers–movers and musicians alike. Let me just say right now that the use of brass instruments is highly undervalued in dance and theater.

Lily Baldwin was elfin and graceful and then fully adept at delivering text, an unexpected talent very appreciated. Kennis Hawkins was cast as what we used to call an East Block athlete, tall and horse-y, but surprising in her speed and lithesome grace.

There was a lot going on, many standout moments, mostly via the text. It would be less without the dance but the dance would be nothing without the soundscore and the text. Except for “ Oh, I think, it’s like, it’s like, like, it’s like, I think………” (I think this is the bad part, or maybe it’s just a terribly ineloquent athlete, vs, the scripted, cliche mouthpieces we heard earlier).

The MaGuire Theater looked gorgeous stripped and bare. The minimal sets (numbers, playing field tape lines) are just right: too much and there’s no room for my imagination; too little and I feel the creators didn’t care enough, ripped me off.

feedforward made me think about my own sporting past and whether it makes a difference if a kid opts for team sports or individual sports. Having grown up doing both (soccer and tennis) I have to say that I still feel a sweet tension between dancing in an ensemble (love it) and in solo roles (love it, but also cringe about it).

It’s just so good to just sit there and be entertained, without much responsibility. I have been feeling literally nauseated all week reading what I find meaningless, self-reverent dialogue about audience manipulation and the purpose of art. It exists, we walk into the building, we sit down and we see it. We spend 60-90 minutes there and we leave. And of course it’s manipulative. Maybe we should look at the manipulative. I feel pretty confident that I can manipulate the word and meaning of manipulative. blah

Thankfully, Neuman’s works have always presented us with an engaging balance of personal and universal thought. There’s humor, nature, brains, and beauty, and plenty of time for my mind to wander, which it did and that never bothers me and no can control it.