TWO STORIES (Jillian Glace): 2016 Fringe review 23

Photo by Jillian Glace
Photo by Jillian Glace

TWO STORIES occurs at the Maas building, a cozy venue in Kensington: fairy lights and cobblestones. Most of the audience is seated on the patio, facing a wall with the three windows one on the first story and two on the second. Inside the building, Amanda Falivene-Rocco and Lavise Lowery perform a fawning dance about longing and distance. The audience watches through the windows, each lit in a slightly different color (purple and blue upstairs, yellow and green downstairs).

People who pay a few dollars extra get to sit inside the building. Upstairs, I am crouched in a corner of Falivene-Rocco’s room watching her sleep. The audience here—seven of us—are crammed together, a little sweaty-sticky, a little giggly. She rolls over, switches on a light, and climbs back on top of the bed, swaying at the window. If Lowery’s movements are gentle, almost all variations on a caress or an embrace, Falivene-Rocco is comparatively aggressive, aching, with sharp, hard pulses up through her body, as if she is grabbing something out of the earth and pulling it up through her body. The choreography is repetitive, and chains itself to the rise and fall of drama in its schmalzy soundtrack (Mumford and Sons, Peter Gabriel, and Van Morrison, among others)when the music crescendos, the performers predictably follow suit. But the production offers a unique experience for both audiences, and is a fine Fringe premier for choreographer Jillian Glace and her performers.

[Maas Building, 1320 N. 5th Street] September 7-10, 2016; fringearts.com/two-stories.

 

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