Though Stein used only seven dancers, Mendelssohn music director Alan Harler had his nearly 100 singers to help fill the large space. Milling around the center, sometimes like sleepwalkers, sometimes more purposefully, they eventually perched around the perimeter, vocalizing in rounds.
During a miraculous lull in Tropical Storm Hanna, a large contingent left the building and surrounded the audience with unamplified sound that came gusting in through the open windows. Though Stein's veteran dancers provided movement cues, they mostly got lost in the crowd and we got lost in the spectacle.
- Merilyn Jackson
$25. 2 p.m. & 4 p.m on Sept 13, at The Rotunda, 4014 Walnut St.
Manic Swell. We critics endure so much - head-banging music, late starts, strobe lights, unwelcome nudity, cell phones dropped in torrential rain, late nights in dangerous neighborhoods, hunger, thirst, deadlines - yet, despite the fact we are paid less than postal workers, we deliver. Why?
Because we're always mining for wonderful work and finding it is like tripping over a gold nugget. Two pieces on Manic Swell's program at Mandell Theater on Saturday made it worth braving Tropical Storm Hanna, uncannily alluded to in the Fringe blurb.
Lauren Mandilian choreographed Information Overload to first-rate music by John Avarese and Matthew Baker. She also created splendid animation with letters falling like rain down the screen and architectural lines intersecting each other. Five dancers did their turns nicely until a fatal error message appeared on the screen. In this dance there were no errors.
