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At the beginning of Vincent Dance Theatre’s North American Premiere of If We Go On, presented at the Alexander Kasser Theater April 15, 17, and 18th, Vincent Dance Theatre referenced Yvonne Rainer’s “No Manifesto.” Rainer’s “No Manifesto” calls upon negating or stripping things down, just doing in a very minimalist fashion. Yvonne Rainer’s iconic TRIO A is one example of this minimal approach to choreography. 

Rainer utilized everyday movements in her choreography. In the “No Manifesto,” she writes: “NO to spectacle, no to virtuosity no to transformations and magic and make believe.” The dancing in “TRIO A” comes across less like Swan Lake, and more along the lines of a task, as though Rainer could turn at any moment to operate an article of heavy machinery, or change a tire. As a result, Rainer’s choreography suggests that art-making itself could be like any other everyday activity, as opposed to a behavior of the supernatural. 

If We Go On contains this element of the everyday, too. The performer’s dialogue is plain-spoken, leading to odd pauses, complete silence. The actors’ onstage personas seemed very much like everyday people who question things, take things to far, make mistakes, learn to do things together. It was as though everyone from VDT had gotten together to tell us something. In fact, the first impulse of If We Go On seems to spring from the moment in which Charlotte Vincent had perhaps already given up, and decided NOT to go on. Read more »

Students from Christopher Parker’s Mythology course at MSU wrote reviews of the recent Department of Theatre and Dance Production Polaroid Stories by Naomi Iizuka. Here’s a sampling of their responses. Take a look—and feel free to add your own!  

“Montclair State University students are in fact high up on a mountain, but in the play Polaroid Stories, which is a newer day Metamorphoses, the actors are on a physical high—snow mountain. A Polaroid is a camera that develops its own film. These people are the Polaroid camera; they create their own stories. All these stories have a similar point that combine together. The actors living on the streets all have hardships. They are acting like the gods in their life situations. They bring the themes of Ovid’s Metamorphoses into situations of our time, as in poverty, homelessness, prostitution, etc.” (Grace Waksmundzki) 

“Any mythology student should see this play. This play shows you that mythology is not just a bunch of old, farfetched, and made-up stories. But, it shows you that mythology has to do with human nature and behavior just like Freud suggested. The characters and events in classical mythology symbolize human actions and emotions. It has to do with love, substance abuse, incest, family problems, personal desires, and many other aspects of the spectrum of humans. Athena didn’t literally burst from her father’s forehead, but perhaps that symbolizes that she thought much like her father and that she had much in common with him in regards to intelligence. Every mythology-interested person should see this play so they will be able to recognize the relevance of classical, ancient mythology and modern life.” (Richard Link)

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In his essay “On Cultural Power,” taken from remarks made at a 1997 debate with black playwright August Wilson, Robert Brustein states his belief in theater as a springboard for political action and the importance of inclusion when it comes to audiences’ experience:”We have had some sour experience in the twentieth century regarding efforts to regulate or improve human nature through the agency of a political system: 

Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Iran under the Ayatollah, to name a few … “’All revolutions,’ as Eugene Ionesco wrote, ‘burn the libraries of Alexandria.’ Today in American we see a similar development in what is called political correctness—which in its overzealous crusade to purge our language of offensive terms sometimes seems to be leading to what one critic has called ‘freedom from speech.’  Read more »

MSU students wrote responses to the Department of Theatre and Dance’s recent production of the Meadowlands Project. Below is a random sampling of the students’ reactions.  Read their take-aways and then add your own.  We’d love to hear from you!

“Whether you hate it while you are stuck there or not, when it comes down to it everybody loves their home town. No matter how disgusting or smelly it is, or full of snotty people, you just can’t resist it sometimes.  Loving where you are from is a key point to Rogelio Martinez’s tale of an area destroying its inhabitants. Martinez provides very good insight into how a simple act of carelessness can affect a large amount of people…. Debbie Saivetz’s direction focuses on the fact that sometimes we have to take matters into our own hands to secure the safety of our loved ones and others. All the characters tie into the same topic and bring a sense of urgency to the matter at hand. With no true ending to the story, it really shows that it is left up to us to make the outcome a happy one.” Read more »

Orgy of Tolerance is, in part, Belgian director Jan Fabre’s response to what he sees as an alarming increase in the presence and tolerance of neo-Fascist attitudes in Europe. In a culture that claims to value inclusivity, are there limits to tolerance? In a tolerant society, how do we cope with extremes? Has a climate of fear and crisis led to a greater acceptance of certain attitudes and behavior that otherwise would not be considered acceptable?

Tell us what you think!