OCR Text |
Show Review Sokolow: A strange merge By JIM WALDO Chronicle Staff While the Anna Sokolow's Players Project was presented in connection with the Repertory Dance Theater summer workshop and the "Summerdance" series, it wasn't really a performance of dance. Rather, the performance was one which combined dance with theater, and in this case more specifically theater of the absurd. The dance aspect of the Players Project was most evident in the first two numbers. The first of these, "Act without Words," is from a play by Samuel Beckett. The piece was intense and frightening, a very graphic picture of hell. Performed by Henry Smith, the danceact was thrown at the audience in an agonized frenzy. The second number, "A Short Lecture and Demonstration on the Evolution of Ragtime as Presented by Jelly RolJ M was a humorous piece anH can not help but compare ft? RDT's "Piano Rag." iPm same way, "The Evolution Ragtime presented its hi through the stereotyped;; forms of ragtime. e The differences between the Players Project work and k work of RDT was again that the Players Project merged w theater. Thus, the lecture wfc went along with the demon stration in t-.hic nmi 1 lucr was much a part of the number There was a great distant in the 'Evolution of Ragtiaie however, which did not allow the audience to take part in the number to a very full extent. This was perhaps because of the blank looks on the dancers' faces, or the merging of theater and dance, or perhaps because the number was a more technical stereotyping of another dance form than the RDT number the audience was familiar with. The final part of the concert, eight short pieces under the title "Margrette-Magritte," is difficult dif-ficult to comment upon. The numbers varied from total dance to straight poetry reading to danced theater. It was totally different from anything I have ever seen before. |