Spoleto 10 w/ Eliza
Turning Movement into Words
RECENTLY I have been writing about dance more than actively dancing, and since this blog is a platform on which to bounce my opinion to the small readership I have, I thought to take the first long day of summer to do so. This was the first Spoleto where my fellow dancers in Anonymity... Read »
Oyster and Giselle
SPOLETO’S LAST ACT. The final two dance offerings for Spoleto Festival USA were about as different as they could be, showing the wonderful contrast that the festival organizers are so adept at presenting, as well as the range that dance covers, from a 200-year-old classic to something completely new. In Oyster, the talents of... Read »
Expression Sung and Danced
I HAVE ALWAYS meant to attend the Westminster Choir’s annual Spoleto performance, but have not gotten to it until this year. In the beautiful and acoustically brilliant setting of the Cathedral Church of St. Luke & St. Paul, this group of young singers from Rider University in Princeton New Jersey delivered beyond my expectations.... Read »
Escape to Chamber Music
DUCKING INTO the recently refreshed Dock Street Theatre on an especially sweltering afternoon, I realized that this is one of my favorite moments of the festival. It is one of those things that makes an ordinary day extraordinary, which is so good for one’s mental health. This particular day I sat in the balcony... Read »
Lone Star Shining
PICCOLO’S Stelle di Domani series is part of the College of Charleston Theater Department and produces several student acted plays during the theater-saturated Piccolo Spoleto. Set in Texas in the 1970s, James McLure’s Lone Star is a one-act tragicomic glimpse into a mucked up life that runs further amuck one Friday night behind Angel’s Bar... Read »
Dance: Noon and Night
ONE LAYER of Lucinda Childs’ DANCE is the eleven dancers who spill across the stage with movement that is like a live feed of entrances and exits in head-spinning sequences that are contained in constant parameters, and propelled by the pulsating flurry of the Philip Glass score which is experienced behind the final layer... Read »
A Marriage of Poetry and Song
IF YOU ATTEND a performance of the Westminster Choir (a Spoleto tradition), you will hear a song inspired by South Carolina poet laureate, Marjory Wentworth. Nathan Jones composed the piece based on Marjory’s “Newlyweds,” a poem written in an obscure Welsh form called the cynhunned which requires a seven syllable line. Marjory describes the... Read »
Actors and Marionettes
THE GATE THEATRE always offers something terrific and this year’s production of Present Laughter is no exception. Noel Coward’s play revolves around the character of Gary Essendine who is the star of his own life as well as the many stages he has dominated. Actor Stephen Brennan plays Essendine with aplomb, both in is... Read »
Spoleto Opera and Art
THE FIRST DAYS of Spoleto have, for me, been preoccupied with my eldest daughter’s graduation from the school she has attended for the last eight years. This departure before a new beginning has overshadowed my usual feeling of the festival’s whirlwind kickoff. Nevertheless, I have gotten to a few events. As an opera amateur,... Read »
Gallim Dance: What’s Modern Today?
TODAY’S MODERN DANCERS are not dealing with the emotional palate of yesterday. Their responses to the world deal with an ever-changing sense of psychology, technology, and culture. The form of modern dance is at its best when the perspective is fresh, the movement is original, and the performers are invested—which was true of the... Read »
