It’s warm out, and it’s time to dance. I know it, you know it, and Toronto knows it – this city offers a multitude of dance performances, from indie dance troupes to bigger productions, most of which seem to range from free to cheap. Never seen a dance production before? Not sure dance is for you? This week I’ve culled a few that sound both exploratory and accessible. Try something new! Already love dance? You’re in the right place. Read on!
Here is what’s going on in Toronto theatre this week. There are several great shows to catch for the week of June 17th, 2013. ** Shows marked with the double asterisks and in red are the ones that make Wayne, our Managing Editor, wish he could exist in multiple parallel universes so he could check them all out.
The emperor has no clothes in the Toronto theatre premiere of The Life and Death of Marina Abramovic
I must preface this review by saying that I consider myself to be fairly “in love” with performance artist Marina Abramovic. I also find actor Willem Dafoe dynamic, and while I’ve never seen any of director Robert Wilson’s work, I know he’s collaborated with a number of my favorite artists, and is highly regarded by my peers.
I expected an evening of mystique and intrigue, of aesthetic and intellectual confrontation, and I expected to enjoy myself immensely. It took me most of the night to admit this last part wasn’t happening.
Indie theatre goes epic with Passion Play in Toronto
A few years ago it became, for a time, fashionable to refer to practically everything as “epic.” You might have complimented your friend on the “epic shirt” she was wearing or expressed how “epic” your pizza tasted. The popularity of this word reached an annoying pinnacle and then I suppose trailed off.
Now that “epic” is no longer a catchphrase it is once again free to use appropriately – I can describe something as epic without undermining its sincerity. But I think the word still carries that popularized connotation; it maintains some lingering sense of “coolness.” Which is what makes it the very best word to describe Passion Play.
Passion Play is seriously epic. In every sense of the word.
Toronto’s Storefront Theatre becomes a sensory-immersive space in The Bone House
This is going to be a difficult review to write. And not because Red One Theatre Collective’s The Bone House is a difficult show to love. Quite the opposite – this is an exciting piece of indie theatre. But its success is so reliant on what you don’t know about it that I feel wary of telling you much at all.
