At the Fringe

May 18, 2010 at 8:41 pm Leave a comment

Update

Saw Octavia Cup last night and cannot recommend it highly enough. If you love dance or are curious about what makes dance an art, here in Queens for a brief moment is your answer. My words won’t do it justice, but Oberon Grove’s do. I can only hope I will see more of Laura Ward and her committed, brave, and talented dancers soon.

Original post

This weekend is Open Studios in LIC, during which the area’s arts-infested buildings open their doors so that viewers can meet the artists and see their work close up. As part of the weekend, there are also some performances, including this below, by Laura Ward/Octavia Cup. I saw a preview a few weeks ago and loved it. I don’t often enjoy dance performances, but the choreography is so beautiful and organic, and the mash-up music behind it intriguing. The dancers are gorgeous too, both in their movement and, more simply, their long, lithe, and muscular appearance.

If you see one dance performance this year…

Laura Ward/Octavia Cup Dance Theatre‘s Echoes and Dreams

If a little dreaming is dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less but to dream more, to dream all the time—Marcel Proust

Enter the Dream Machine with Octavia Cup. Fall into a shifting world where dance leads you into a dream so vivid your only escape is a pinch from a friend. Abandon the rational mind in a crazy labyrinth of images, words and patterns. Experience dreamscapes morphing, twisting and emerging through reflections of movement, sound and verse.

Let go… Let’s go…

Every great dream begins with a dreamer, Laura ward and Octavia Cup teams up with poet Alberto Zayden (whose poetry the New York Times calls “Visionary”) and installation artist Judy Thomas to bring a spectacle of free flowing expressionism to the stage. Original music from French composer Michel Ayello and Swiss-Italian Fa Ventilato add to the mix with loops, samples and curls fusing new sounds with echoes from the past.

Queens Fringe Festival at the Secret Theatre
44-02 23rd St., Long Island City, 11101
May 20, 21, 22 Thursday- Saturday at 8pm; May 23 at 2 p.m.
Tickets are $20 pre-sale www.secrettheatre.com or call 718-392-0722
$15 for students/seniors (discount pre-sale only), $24 at the door; $40 for opening night wine gala at the theatre.