D.C. singer-songwriter John Bustine and Rose (yup, just Rose) sing ‘The Wreck of the Good Ship Lollipop’ — from Bustine’s album “Waltzes and Pleas” –while a fan dances. 6:38 pm under the Baldacchino

Two major components of my review of Dancing to Ancient Rhythms were that it featured mostly white female dancers performing cultural tourism, and that it looked like a dance recital for a dance class. Karen McLane, the head of the Ancient Rhythms dancce company, responded to my criticism in the comments, but seeing as she also pointed out two errors, I think that her remarks deserve their own post.

McLane writes: “The ladies performing were Indian, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese rather than “mostly Caucasian”, and the company is most certainly not comprised of my students. Rather, they are performers with extensive professional performance background coming from ballet, modern, and Georgian dance companies, and we perform regularly for corporate, embassy, and special events. I am loath to categorize these women as students performing in a recital (ouch). Finally, the majority of the choreography is a far cry from “belly dance”, but rather a fuller fusion of many dance forms.”

I stand by my initial assessment that it looked like a recital (though not a bad one: In my review I wrote, “the costumes are exquisite, the performers are elegant and seductive, and the dancing is very, very good.”) I also stand by my criticism that it lacked a compelling narrative or sense of plot, to which McLane also responded in her comment.

Dancing to Ancient Rhythms
The Apothecary at the Trading Post

Remaining Performances:
Saturday, July 25 @ 2:30 p.m.

They say: “Visually stunning vignettes of the sacred and profane, the transcendent and mundane. Theatrical dance inspired by the wisdom of the East in a captivating first Fringe Festival performance by the critically acclaimed Ancient Rhythms Dance Company.”

Mike says: Before I rip into this show as a terrible, terrible fit for Fringe, let me just say that the costumes are exquisite, the performers are elegant and seductive, and the dancing is very, very good. Despite all that, this show is the worst Fringe has to offer.

Why? Because Dancing to Ancient Rhythms is an hour of belly dances performed by students of the Ancient Rhythms Dance Company, some of whom are still in high school. In other words, it’s a dance recital. On top of that, it’s located in the Apothecary, which is poorly insulated for temperature and sound—the latter so much so that last night’s dance routines were frequently interrupted by what sounded like a much more interesting show next door.

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Late Bloomers and Glory Days
The Bodega at the Trading Post

Remaining Performances:  Friday, July 24th at 8:30 p.m.; Sunday, July 26th at 6:30 p.m.

They Say:  “The fifteen year high school reunion of the Fighting Eagles brings out the teenager in 7 former friends. But as the drink count rises and secrets are revealed, will they manage to stay that way?”

Glen’s Take: The above description promises — or threatens, I suppose, depending on your point of view — a tried and true reunion-sparks-shattering-revelations drama in the That Championship Season mode.  Which is essentially what Late Bloomers and Glory Days delivers — you’ll know you’re on rails from beginning to end, but the track runs pretty smooth.

Local playwright Allyson Currin knows that we ‘ve seen this all before, and plays with those expectations a bit.  That shattering revelation is deliberately anti-climactic, and — mercifully — has nothing to do with anyone coming out of the damn closet because that shit is, can we all agree, A) not particularly shattering, and B) SERIOUSLY tired, already.

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The Rise of General Arthur

The Bedroom at Fort Fringe

Remaining Performances:

Just the one:  Wednesday, July 15 at 8:00 p.m.

They Say: “The fifth century meets the twenty-first when Lance-Corporal Pellinore is shipped off to Baghdad.  It’s Arthur’s story…as you’ve never heard it before.”

Glen’s Take: Well, that doesn’t really cover it.  No, if you want to know what to expect, there’s a few lines from the program that’ll do the job better.

I’m not talking the extensive bibliographic exegesis of source texts, or the quotes from Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Sir Thomas Malory and Dennis (”You can’t expect to weild supreme executive power just ’cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!”) the Peasant.

No, it’s this bit, from the cover:  ”The Rise of General Arthur, an original presentation of stories from a theatrical work-in-progress by phillip andrew bennett low”.

Got that?  Here’s the take-home:  1. Stories. 2. Work-in-Progress. (And okay, 3. Name in lowercase. Pretension threat level: orange.)

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“So I’m going to build a political machine, and then I’ll run for Congress.”

- muscle-bound bald guy, intensely discussing marginal tax rates and Congressional committee machinations, while monkey noises from “Please Listen: A Musical Chaos” waft from the Baldacchino

Leave a Tone After the Message!!!
The Trading Post – The Apothecary

Remaining Performances:
July 12 at 2:00p.m.

They say: Check your mirrors. Where’s True North? Five journeys to find the secret. You can’t get there from here. Who has the key? Where’s the lock-box? Talismans everywhere leading us forward and astray simultaneously.

Brett’s take: “My friend often asks me, ‘What is modern dance? Isn’t it just a bunch of people running back and forth across the stage?’”

That is not overheard gossip outside of this show; rather it is a quote from the first of four modern dance pieces that compose this hour-long show. What follows that quote: the dancers running back and forth across the stage.

With that cheeky self-awareness “Magnetic East” begins, but the promisingly winking tone is, alas, not sustained. The dancers are simply neither talented nor committed enough to blow the cliches up to humorous oversize. And so goes the rest of the hour: watching, I frequently wished to see the same concept performed by more capable dancers, or at least more capable actors: often, even when the movement grew interesting, the dancer’s faces were blank or strained, shattering the illusion (the exception being the pixieish Adrian Moore, whose expressive face showed what might have been).

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All That Was Left of Them
Goethe Institut

Remaining Performances:
July 11th @ 1 pm
July 11th @ 5:15 pm
July 12th @ 5 pm

They say: A toy soldier yearns for an impossible love. A girl is punished for her vanity. All That Was Left of Them combines the work of Hans Christian Anderson to praise the importance of fairy tales and question the way we tell stories.

Chris says: Sure enough, this show comprises two fairy tales.  The first is a doomed Toy Story love affair between a tin soldier and a paper doll (hint: he melts, she burns).  The second is a darker cautionary tale for naughty children.  A girl who was to bring a loaf of bread home to her mother has instead stepped on it to navigate her way across a mud puddle.  This misdeed propels her to the devil’s entrance hall, where she she finds herself entangled and starving in a web as demons taunt her with bread.

The tricky part of adapting a narrative work for the stage is making the “this happened, and then this happened” into action.  The cheater’s method is to leave the narration intact.  There are moments, especially in the first fairy tale, when one of the actors quotes from the fairy tale while another acts out the scene like a Christmas pantomime.

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Name: Chris Swanson
Hometown: Dillon, MT.  Actually, I grew up just down the street from Fringe impresario Julianne Brienza.
Years in DC: 4
First CapFringe? Nope.  Blogged last year too.
Shows I’m Seeing: All That Was Left of Them, The Fall of the House of Usher, Born of a Fairytale, so far…
Random Thing You Might Find Revealing About My Sensibilities: I teach dramatic structure to graduate theater students.

Name: Suzyn Smith Webb
Hometown: McLean, Va
Years in D.C.: 23, non-consecutively
First CapFringe? Nope: Been attending shows for three years, and blogging for two.
Shows I’m Seeing: I’m reviewing ‘Closet land’ and ‘Is there anybody out there?” and will see  ‘May 39th/40th’ just for fun. And then there’s NEXT week… I’m dying to see the musical about the monkey.
Random Thing You Might Find Revealing About My Sensibilities: My husband and I are naming our cats in alphabetical order. “Agatha” and “Boris” are no longer with us. Our current cats are “Cool Disco Dan” “Dr. Frank-n-furter” and “Esperanto.” I’m voting for naming the next cat “Ned Flanders”