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| Photo by John Brandon |
Buckets of Joy
The Neta Dance Company puts 2280 Pints! onstage at DTW
By QUINN BATSON
Offoffoff.com
Neta Pulvermacher finds the joy in dancing and has fun playing with buckets in 2280 Pints!, presented at DTW for its NYC debut. Musicality and humor keep things rich and entertaining, and almost every conceivable dance use for large empty plastic buckets gets explored onstage.
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| | | NETA DANCE: 2280 PINTS! | Choreography by: Neta Pulvermacher with Colette Krogol, Meghan Merrill, Matt Reeves, Robin Neveu Brown and Rebecca Warner.
Dancers: Courtney Baron, Robin Neveu Brown, Karen Srikalima Harvey, Coletter Krogol, Meghan Merrill, Lonnie Poupard Jr., Neta Pulvermacher, Matt Reeves, Rebecca Warner, with Stephani Babcock, Melissa Coleman, Lindsay Head, Kaitlin Lawrence, Joey Loto, Alexa Pliskow, Emily Pozek, Olivia Ruggieri, Joshua Stansbury, Shelby Sullivan, Brandon Washington.
Costumes by: Stacey Galloway.
Lighting design by: B. Lussier.
Production stage manager: Scott Laurentz.
| | SCHEDULE | DTW
May 25-28, 2011
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For a piece as generally absurd as 2280 Pints!, Chopin is an interesting first choice of music, but the juxtaposition works well; musical choices throughout are unexpected and good. After an opening scene of coin-taking automaton statues that gets the audience involved and active, classical music acts as a sobering and calming influence. Rebecca Warner is the protagonist/focus for the early parts of the dance, with competition from a bucket pyramid and a woman whose feet are stuck in a bucket while her partner spins and lifts her.
Three scenes stick out as especially joyous, joy being a stated theme of 2280 Pinrs! Three guys in red sneakers do what guys do best; they jump over things for the sheer fun of it. The things here are buckets, but there is a freedom and playfulness about the whole scene that makes these guys any guys having fun being a little athletic, in a completely unselfconscious way, and though the choreography is smooth and clever, this doesn't feel like a dance. Similarly, a scene of mass percussion, with all seated on buckets that they use as drums, has the rhythmic fun of the off-Broadway show Stomp, and the joy is contagious. Best is another large group piece with hip-hop/b-boy music and moves, all done with and on buckets, to original music by Miri Ben-Ari.
Everything about 2280 Pints! has an easy flow, sprinkled with humor and stagecraft, and the performers are especially fresh. Pulvermacher makes an appearance as well, in a duet with shade and shades that gives her a chance to show some moves and remind us how young her creative brain can still be. It is easy to see, from the wide range of dancers, movement and music styles she embraces here, how and why she conceived and started The A.W.A.R.D. Show (whose all-stars are currently at Joyce Soho, May 31-June 5) to bring more young choreographers into the light and give them a shot at some money.
Generosity and inclusiveness fills 2280 Pints!, especially in a Saturday afternoon show that includes the Harlem Bucketeers, who are dancers from the afterschool program Our Children's Foundation that Pulvermacher has been working with. It's hard not to leave the show smiling, especially after a parting dance jam in which the audience is again pulled up onstage.
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JUNE 3, 2011
OFFOFFOFF.COM • THE GUIDE TO ALTERNATIVE NEW YORK
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