My lovely wife got tickets for us to see Stomp at the Robinson Center in downtown Little Rock.
I knew next to nothing about this show except that the players banged on trash cans and other random stuff. As such, I was completely blown away.
The show starts out with a spotlight picking out a lone person on the stage, sweeping with a push broom. Push, Push, Pussshhh. The entire show starts out and and builds on that single act. Push, Push, Pussshhh. Push, push, push, tap! and the sweeper knocks the collected dust from the broom. More sweepers arrive on stage with a grunt of acknowlegement. The pushing and the tapping multiplies and becomes syncopated with crazy manic side rythms rising and falling as the performers play their music in a choreographed dance.
The music that is produced would be amazing and wonderful to a blind person. Knowing that it is made from the most mundane commonplace items is all the more incredible. Pile on top of those two wonders the fact that the music is both the focus and the by-product of a theatrical dance performance and the show is simply astounding.
The performers are incredible in the sheer talent they possess. Rhythmically gifted, the whole crew are very skilled dancers. The dancing really is stomping. Very raw, powerful, earthy- think Martha Grahm more than Isadora Duncan. The performers acknowledge and incorporate the crowd throughout the show. I was laughing at the comic antics at one turn and sitting with my mouth gapin at the next. Repeatedly I was stunned by the fact that it was dance, music, and theater, the dance making the music which was making the performance which was driving the dance all strung out in an infinite loop .
I feel no apprehension that I am giving any show spoilers away here. I simply cannot convey what this show was with words. I took away mulitple favorite parts: the playing of kitchen sinks full of water, strapped around the performer’s necks like they were in the drum corp of some industrial hobo marching band; the playing of rubber tubes, the varying lengths of tubes each performer used versitile enough to play melody; the trash bag band, who stuck their head in a garbage bag and pulled out tin cans, plastic grocery bags, fast food cups, etc., as their musical instruments. There was so much going on that the superlative dance/music performances created out of nothing more than slapping the hands against the body and stomping the feet on the floor can almost be overlooked. Everything was used as a music making vehicle. Everything.
The back drop was this two tier contraption suggesting an alley in an industrial part of town. The upper tier sports a collection of castoff items – car parts like brake drums and a fuel tank stick out among the myriad other clap trap strung up against the wall. The lower level sported a couple of doorways and a collection of trash barrels. Practically every inch of this backdrop was used to make music. Amazing music at that. The making of which, is amazing.
During one manic session, three or four performers were swinging from cables side to side, launching themselves back and forth across the upper tier of the backdrop, playing their crazy rhythms all whatever industrial junk was hanging in front of them. Another saw one of the performers was dragging his “instrument”, which I believe was a trash can lid at the moment, up and down the rungs of the ladder used to access the upper tier. I was reminded of some of the techniques I have seen Marty Willson-Piper and Peter Koppes use to wrestle sounds out of their guitars. Awesome stuff.
One of the things I liked about it was that it could so easily appeal to such a wide range of people. To quote the Stomp website:
You’re mistaken if you look for a hidden message in STOMP. There are no political connotations, no pretentious techniques, and no dialogue to misconstrue. Instead, you’re bombarded by noises that you usually try to block out. STOMP takes the everyday sounds of pipes and brooms, lighters and garbage pail lids, and creates the extraordinary.
I never expected to have so much fun at a show like that. TJM, Stomp will be in Hot-lanta mid January, and Jake, if you haven’t caugth them already, there are several dates in sunny California.
Jennifer was telling me that she heard a radio interview with some of the performers, probably NPR. The performers didn’t bring any instruments of their own, but raided the studio’s kitchen and put on an ad-hoc performance with whatever they found. I can’t find an archive of that show, but if anyone runs across it, please post the link, as I am eager to hear it for myself.
We saw Stomp last night at Atlanta’s historic Fox Theater and it was indeed enjoyable. Danny’s synopsis pretty much covers the show so I’ll just add my individual impressions.
Danny mentioned in his review that the music produced would be wonderful to a blind person. I’d approach this a bit differently and say that the music produced probably gives people with vision a pretty good idea of what it’s like to hear things as a blind person. The rhythmic beats were nice, but what truly left an impression on me was how much I found myself noticing and thinking about common, every day sounds like the broom sweeping against the floor even without the context of the music.
I also found it interesting that each performer managed to have his or her own unique style that really stood out, even though if I tried to describe each scene it would sound like they were all doing exactly the same thing, often in unison. By the end of the show I found that I had definite preferances for some performers over others.
I will say that I didn’t think the music itself was all that complex. Often a scene would consist of four or five people banging on things in rhythm until it built up to something that sounded kind of like the drums at the start of “The Obvious Child.” (Paul Simon/The Rhythm of the Saints) But usually all four or five people ended up doing the same thing. I thought it would have been more daring and robust to try to shake things up and have different performers on different objects and mix in some contrast to play the sounds against one another. There is some of this, but most of the scenes have the actors all playing the same object to the same or similar effect.
As an aside, the Fox Theater deserves a few comments of its own. I’ve always meant to check it out and that place was beautiful. It’s this old historic theater right in the heart of downtown that’s decked out and sweet. The theater itself is two levels and we had pretty good seats right in the balcony area. (I will say the seats are tiny and a bit cramped without much legroom, which I suspect is commo for old theaters.) The interior walls are a replica castle and the ceiling is deep blue with lights to mimic stars. It has a very Persian feel and before the show started they were pumping some kind of strange Indian techo music through the speakers which made it all feel pretty wild.