Dance Review: Safely spooky BodyVox cabaret stops just short of 'Bloody' good
Dance Review: Safely spooky BodyVox cabaret stops just short of 'Bloody' good
on October 22, 2010 at
5:05 PM, updated
Blaine Truitt CovertOne of the members performing in the "BodyVox" cabaret, which opened Thursday night at the BodyVox Dance Center.Ashley Roland and Jamey Hampton, the sprightly mother and father figures of the Portland dance troupe BodyVox, have given away the formula for their latest comic movement brew, "BloodyVox."
"Don't be afraid of that name," they write in their directors' note for the program. "It's just a harmless little holiday show."
They're right. "BloodyVox," which opened Thursday night at the BodyVox Dance Center, is a tickle, not a terror. It plays around in the pop-culture dustbin, pulling out abandoned Halloween and horror-flick motifs and, in environmentally correct Portland fashion, recycling them into a fresh and friendly new product.
You get your "Tales From the Crypt," your lurching Boris Karloff stand-in, your graveyard ghouls, your zombie jamboree, your slightly sinister clown. No eye of newt or toe of frog, at least that I noticed, but the stew is stirred with healthy dollops of outlandish costuming, innocent erotics, stage smoke and a suitably sickly greenish hue. If I didn't know it'd be the kiss of, um, death in certain circles, I'd say this is a good old-fashioned family show.
One of the glories and drawbacks of BodyVox is that it makes this stuff look so simple. Audiences tend to underestimate the degrees of difficulty and skill involved in this whole-body and quirkily omnivorous approach to movement, which BodyVox has polished to a professional sheen. The company exudes something of a vaudeville baggy-pants personality: Roland and Hampton actually want their shows to be entertaining.
In "BloodyVox," the terrors range from a demon-spewing bed in "Dormez Vous" to some martial-arts mockery in the three short episodes of "Zen Fury, Mountain of Pain," to a silent-film send-up set to the tone of a rollicking piano playing "Toot Toot Tootsie, Goodbye." "Little Miss Tough It" rolls on her muffet, enjoying all that spidery attention, and the evening ends, to the strains of a Prokofiev waltz, with the sweeping "BloodyVox Ball," complete with little vampiric love-nips to the neck.
'BloodyVox'
When: 7:30 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays and 2 p.m. Saturdays, through Oct. 30 (final Oct. 30 show begins 7 p.m.)
Where: BodyVox Dance Center, 1201 N.W. 17th Ave.
Tickets: $20-$49
Contact: 503-229-0627, Through all the fun on opening night, the feeling persisted that something still wasn't quite there: that final, audacious step to snap everything into place. An impromptu assembly of the League of Tough Guy Arts Observers gathered on the sidewalk afterward, scalpels at the ready to slice into the cadaver.
"It didn't really get to the essence of the word 'bloody,' did it?" one Tough Guy remarked, aiming for the jugular. His companions nodded in agreement.
"If I wanted to see an out-of-shape middle-aged guy, I'd look in the mirror," another commented.
That one seemed way off the mark. Dancers half their ages would kill to be able to do some of the things BodyVox veterans Hampton, Roland, Eric Skinner and Daniel Kirk - all in excellent condition, thank you very much - pull off with ease. Besides, this show's cast includes a lot of fresh and vigorous young performers (several moved up from the second company, BodyVox-2).
"They ought to take an old horror movie we all know and follow it through, give it a real BodyVox twist," one Tough Guy said, and I thought, "Great idea. Maybe next year."
This year's show is more of a vaudeville, a string of only slightly connected short acts, and its missing link was someone to link the pieces - a narrator, a cabaret emcee, someone to be the courtly and sinister death of the party. Intriguingly, just such a fellow introduced the show, in the form of a slouch-capped Hampton, who had his mouth taped shut and spoke, hilariously, through a video of his lippy mouth moving on a camera phone held up to his face. But then the character just ... disappeared.
Come back, please, Mr. Hampton. Be our guide.
Related StoriesI need a short love of poem ,just short.Thank you very muchHello,Every one.Who feels self is the high educator that could you leave a short love of poem.If the poems have many samples which I would thank you for your helping.Or you can leave message _作业帮
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I need a short love of poem ,just short.Thank you very muchHello,Every one.Who feels self is the high educator that could you leave a short love of poem.If the poems have many samples which I would thank you for your helping.Or you can leave message
I need a short love of poem ,just short.Thank you very muchHello,Every one.Who feels self is the high educator that could you leave a short love of poem.If the poems have many samples which I would thank you for your helping.Or you can leave message for me.Thank you very much.
粗体：我需要像诗般而简单的爱,仅仅这么简单.非常感谢.
细体字：嘿,大家好.试问谁可以充当一个学者,或者说你可以去拒绝像诗般一样简明的爱.如果诗能分成样品,那么我将感谢你的帮助.或者你可以给我发个邮件,真的非常感谢.- Just The Two Of Us... Until We Meet Again Live
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At17 "Just the two of us...until we meet again"live (CD)
这个音乐会，是两个女孩这十年来努力的见证；香港音乐史上最具实力二人女子组合，永不磨灭的纯净，只要给她们一个舞台，两支咪高峰，你会明白为何有些乐迷会跟她们一辈子。
升华推介：弱水三千/一万一千公里/跑步机上/开到荼靡
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Just The Two Of Us... Until We Meet Again Live的评论Exxon Mobil profit is just short of record
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