All posts by Crystal Wood

A Fringe Contest Worth Dancing About!

By Crystal Wood

The Fringe Festival isn’t just for theatre lovers.  Thanks to the Fringe Dance Initiative, 11 dance shows are also a part of this year’s festival.

To encourage people to see these shows (as if I needed any encouragement), the Fringe is holding a contest.  Here’s how it works.

Attend a dance show at the Fringe, and you will receive a stamp card with 5 empty boxes.  Each time you attend one of the dance shows, hang around after and ask one of the performers to stamp or sign your card.  Once you’ve filled all 5 boxes, give it to one of the dance artists or drop it off at the Dance Umbrella of Ontario (490 Adelaide Street W.)

What can you win?  How does a trip sound?  (To Ottawa, Montreal or Quebec City.)  You could also win a spa package, tickets to a dance performance, or an aerial dance lesson.

For more information, check out danceatthefringe.blogspot.com

Eternal Eclipse (Kinetic Elements) – 2010 Toronto Fringe Review

By Crystal Wood

The difficulty in reviewing a dance show at the Fringe is that they are nearly always multi-piece performances.  So much like watching sketch or improv, you’re bound to like some parts better than others.  I found this to be the case with Eternal Eclipse, by local company Kinetic Elements.

The show uses the underlying theme of Roman gods and goddesses (although the program says Greek) to tie together ten contemporary dance pieces.  For the most part, there is a good variety of distinction between the different deities (i.e. Mars is powerful, Venus is sultry).  The show also makes good use of the dancers, incorporating solos, duos and full-cast routines, and making good use of the whole company.

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David and Jonathan (BrokenOpen Theatre) – 2010 Toronto Fringe Review

By Crystal Wood

Remember when you were young and just beginning to question the universe?  Maybe you still are?  It’s something everyone experiences, which could be why David and Jonathan (presented by BrokenOpen Theatre) is likely to resonate with Fringe audiences.

David and Jonathan are two young men whose world changes when they move from a small Mennonite town to attend theatre school in the big bad city of ‘Tronna.  They soon learn that the world is different than what Bible camp might have prepared them for, and their self-reflection takes these old friends down increasingly divergent paths.
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