About
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Reviews
7
Rooms to the Soul
Ariel opens windows to the soul in 7 Rooms
by Michael Barnes, Austin American-Statesman, January 27, 2001
Architecturally, Ducloux Hall is nothing but a box with a pitched roof. Ordinarily, under florescent lights, it's a bleak rehearsal hall for Austin Lyric Opera. Yet through simple additions of dark and light panels, designer Ann Marie Gordon has made it into an elegant theater. To spin magical moods, Zach Murphy caught patches of costume and skin with impressionistic lights.
Artistically, video designers Alison White and Colin Lowry projected vertical and horizontal images on Gordon's panels, some of distorted dancers, others of landscapes or high-tech animations. Amy Burrell completed the visual package with baggy, dress-like costumes for male and female performers that suggested clerical, repressive forces, until dancers stripped, individually and severally, to gauzy, light-hued draperies for more free movement.
Musically, near-genius Graham Reynolds of Golden Arm Trio composed a rhythm-heavy, hypnotic score, with Reynolds himself treating the piano like a jungle of instruments, while he led a pliable five-piece band. The operatic element? Four young artists from Austin Lyric Opera paced among the dancers, chanting Reynolds' lovely, swaying melodies.
The nerve center of the concert was Andrea Ariel and her dances. In a repeated pattern, tight knots of bundled energy transmuted into whipping whirlwinds. These deteriorated into controlled flexing and finally peaceful balancing (often an arabesque-like position with one foot aground, the other stretched back).
As for literary or dramatic content, Ariel clearly followed a line of progressive psychic liberation. For once, some words would have been welcome in a dance concert, perhaps projected onto the panels, just to help the mind compass the movements. Also, the dancers did not always match the dynamism of the musicians.
Few artists combine as many disciplines, and as many inspirations as Ariel -- and to such canny effect. 7 Rooms to the Soul is a landmark.
(7 Rooms to the Soul will also play Feb. 1-4 at the Off Center, 2211-A Hildalgo St., as part of FronteraFest. Call 479-PLAY.)
BYLINE:
Michael
Barnes,
American-Statesman
Arts
Critic
DATE:
January
27,
2001
PUBLICATION:
Austin
American-Statesman
SECTION:
Lifestyle
PAGE:
D8
Theater
review
Copyright
(c)
2001
Austin
American-Statesman
photo by Bret Brookshire
