Bandage A Knife Review

This wonderful review by Catherine Thomas was published in the Oregonian today: Incohesive 'Bandage' intensely cinematic: the production marries a choreographer's and composer's best. "perversely witty" - that's good.

I actually prefer the web title Prepare to be Disoriented in several mediums. "Incohesive" suggests unintentionality, while "disorienting" allows for the possibility of a purposefully fragmented structure, which Bandage a Knife certainly has. Anyway, the review is extremely attentive and discusses all the elements of the show - video, dance, sound, dialogue.

The performance was developed as a spinning out of various tangents from the source material. One of our goals was to experiment with all the different interactive possibilities we could imagine between live dance and recorded video, live voice and recorded sound and voice. That process resulted in a large number of "moments" - and then moments accreted to moments, with an intention towards maximum disjuncture. Threads, echos, mirrorings and repetitions provide a loose web of connections.

I think incorporating narrative elements within the context of dance was the most difficult aspect - perhaps for the audience as well. The lack of narrative consequence creates a possibly uncomfortable "no-man's land". It's a place I want to explore more.

Alongside this fragmented structure, the "performance within the performance runs parallel on a suspended television monitor. Kaj-anne Pepper's solo within the all-white dripping wet "weatherbox" was a single hour-long take. A bravura action for an intimate space and an (original) audience of three.

Here's another excellent review from Lisa Radon.