The Seattle Times reviews small metal objects:
Seattle's Olympic Sculpture Park is a haven for joggers, dog walkers and amblers.
You wander amid artworks, taking in magnificent water and mountain views, maybe chatting with a friend. But do you ever wonder about the strangers strolling by? And their conversations? READ MORE
Seattle Weekly posted an on-line review of last night's performance.
The audience sits in chairs, listening to the performance in headphones while the actors come upon them out of the crowd, telling the story of two invisible men. READ MORE
Welcome to our review blog for small metal objects. Read our patron reviews, click on the Comments button to read the comments of others and post your own thoughts.
Listen. I want you to hear from me, I mean really hear, but how do I do it in an unapologetic-politico-equivocal, diesel-engine, hyperbolic-radio-shout-advertising-saturated world? Common wisdom is if you want to be heard then you better speak the power language, get on board, put up or shut up. If you can’t do it, you’re weak, apathetic, obstinate, and/or impaired. Challenged. I do a lot of double-thinking, double-speaking just to figure out how to communicate authentically, even with myself. The result can often be publicly embarrassing.
*The author of this blog assumes that you are already familiar with "small metal objects", by reading other posts or summaries, or seeing it yourself.
This piece left me with a rare emotional dichotomy: I'm certain that I understand what happened, how it was constructed, why certain choices were made...and yet I'm simultaneously lost in the uncertainty of meaning that seemed to permeate the piece. DID I GET IT? Do I really understand what I just saw? I suppose it doesn't matter. It gave me a certain feeling, and that feeling was warm and compassionate.
“I don’t want to lose you Gary. ”
To sit within the Olympic Sculpture Park with the mandate to look and listen, aided by microphones and headphones is to occupy a place of privilege. Suddenly, rather then hiding the fact that you are engaged in voyeuristic practices, you are laid bare as a spectacle. The Voyeur. The Audience.
“I don’t want to cry in front of a guy. ”
The story of small metal objects is partly a story of masculinity that, much like the performance, is always in motion.
That place, those moments, this relation, these voices, when they capture something of the essence of being human and makes it immediate, there, staged, is the heart of the matter for me when it comes to theater. Here the stage is the Sculpture Park. We watch and listen a long time before we see any actors, yet the actors are certainly there. The noises of the city and the passers by in the park even the obnoxious jets roaring by overhead seemed to be somehow choreographed into the strangely affecting minimalist music and the funny, affirming, thoughtful dialogue.
Small metal objects gets a preview write-up in today's Seattle Times.
Have a listen to an audio interview with Bruce Gladwin, the artistic director of Back to Back Theatre.
Click here to download the mp3 file.
*viewer has opted to not fully describe the content and appearance of each piece, as there are many other worthy summaries on the blog list, and the assumption is that you already have a decent picture of them in your mind.
The second weekend of the festival was blogged on Seattlest:
With two years' experience at the Northwest New Works Festival at On the Boards under our belts as of this weekend, we're seeing a pattern emerge: The really exciting work happens down in the studio, and the mainstage performances are more or less skippable unless you're really into that sort of thing. READ MORE
Be prepared for an overload of sounds and images—this is one of the main themes that runs through this evening of multimedia performances. This weekend’s mainstage artists throw us into the pit of our loud, distracting modern world, where there are a multiplicity of media, sounds and images vying for out attention. With the first piece, Remote::Control (Danny Herter and the Invasive Species) we are not let out of the pit until the very end.
Be prepared for an overload of sounds and images—this is one of the main themes that runs through this evening of multimedia performances. This weekend’s mainstage artists throw us into the pit of our loud, distracting modern world, where there are a multiplicity of media, sounds and images vying for out attention. With the first piece, Remote::Control (Danny Herter and the Invasive Species) we are not let out of the pit until the very end.
Yesterday, I attended the Mainstage Showcase at The NW New Works Festival at On the Boards in Seattle, WA.
Sean Ryan, Regional Programs Coordinator of On the Boards, received a warm greeting from the audience when he stepped out to announce the evening’s lineup. After thanking 4Culture, Windward Communications Group, and other supporters, Sean took time to name past alumnus of The NW New Works Festival, an impressive list, starting with modern dance bad boy Mark Morris performing at The Paramount.
This is the final video in our PodFest series. A very short film by Tania Kupczak, shot in the deep snows of Vermont.
[This video was only available for viewing during the festival.]
Yesterday, I attended four half-hour performances at The NW New Works Festival at On the Boards in Seattle, WA.
The interactive misadventures of GOAT and subgroup 33 (See Manual) was a movement-based improv piece performed by dancers John and Anna Dixon. It opened with Jeffrey Huston counting slowly to 20 over a murmuring soundtrack of electronic grumblings, rumblings, and squeaks. Each number had an associated movement: reminding me of early Merce Cunningham and John Cage experiments in disconnected but rule driven movement and sound.
After this evenings performance I was thinking about how refreshing it was to see performances in an intimate setting, such as the OTB studio provides. I felt close to the performances and engaged with what was being presented. Having seen quite a few performances in the studio space, and certainly not always having had this same response, I realized that my reaction had a lot to do with the performances themselves.
Here's the third video in our PodFest series. This is video is by Matt Hals.
[This video was only available for viewing during the festival.]
One of Annette Toutonghi's acting students posted this thoughtful response to the Mainstage show last weekend on her own blog, Acting Schmacting:
I went this last Saturday and saw part of the NW New Works Festival at On the Boards. There were four performances the night I went. The one I specifically went to see was Pants by Annette Toutonghi, who is one of my acting teachers, and some other people I don’t I can’t name, because I don’t have the program here with me.
Kicking off Week 1’s Mainstage Showcase was a quirky piece called Pants. It can best be described as a collection of vignettes, and while many were quite enjoyable, the overall presentation seemed a bit disjointed. That said, the opening piano solo (and other keyboard work) by Jose Gonzales was great, as was his dance duet with Peter Dylan O’Connor.
On the Boards’ 25th Anniversary NW New Works Festival got off to a great start with the opening weekend’s studio showcase. The show began with Faith Helma’s Undine, an intense and provocative solo performance inspired by Baron de la Motte Fouque’s 1811 text by the same name. With steampunk costuming by Harmony Arnold and set by Drew Foster as the backdrop, Helma embodies different aspects of Undine through spoken and sung text of her own creation.
There's a write-up about the first weekend of the Festival in The Seattle Times:
The gems were hidden in the basement.
Last weekend, nine venturesome new works from the Pacific Northwest were presented at On the Boards' 25th Anniversary NW New Works Festival. And while the mainstage offerings included striking moments, the more engaging work was in the smaller, bottom-floor Studio Theater. READ MORE
Sean Ryan, our intrepid Regional Programs Coordinator, got together with several of the artists in this year's NW New Works Festival to rock out to Prince and make this music video.
Edited by Morgan Dustako.
The amazing Tim Summers took some photos during the dress rehearsals for the first weekend of shows. Here's a sample of what he gave us:
Here are some media previews of the Festival:
On the Boards' NW New Works Festival set for next two weekends in The Seattle Times
On the Boards Showcases Northwest Talent on Seattlest
In this blog entry I review the first half of the mainstage presentation.
Pants is one of the most enchanting pieces of the evening. Comprised of a series of minimalistic scenes, and a strong dosage of wry humor and simple play, the piece unfolds in a clean and deliberate fashion.In it, you will find real music, real dance, real video, real puppeteering, and real performance. There is a lot that passes in front of you during the course of the piece, yet there is never a sense of excess. Time and space seem ample and available.
Here's the second video in our PodFest series. Adam Sekuler's stop-motion dance film with a super soundtrack by Spaghetti Western.
[This video was only available for viewing during the festival.]
It's opening night of the Northwest New Works Festival! The show was sold out, so buy your ticket in advance unless you want to sit on a cushion on the floor. Get there a little bit early... Nancy Guppy will feed you some cake. Buy a glass of wine, and find a seat. Start watching at the beginning. You will see Faith Helma, singing and sort of looping her voice through a microphone. There is some weird stuff on the stage including a rusty old barrel. Then enjoy Left Field Revival, with a great show about a journey to the core of the earth.
We're super-excited to roll out the first video in our PodFest. Check out Melanie Kloetzel's excellent short Icarus Fried, shot on a chicken farm in Idaho.
[This video was only available for viewing during the festival.]
Sean Ryan, Festival Coordinator, asks our Festival artists some important questions in these short audio interviews.
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The latest episode of Nancy Guppy's TV show Art Zone contains an interview with Lane and a tour of our building. Check the Art Zone website to stream the video.
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