Fringe Reviews: Action/Inversion & Laberintos

Action/Inversion, Geneviève Gagné ***
Geneviève Gagné’s mix of contemporary dance and breakdance begins strongly, ironically because of its apparent unpretentiousness and humor. She and her dance partner Raul Guevara enter the stage casually, as if they weren’t even about to perform, and move into a section where only their eyes are dancing. Their duos interestingly play a lot on the contrast between strength and weakness: they fall, they get back up; they support each other, they let each other fall down. Unfortunately, the solos are nowhere near as captivating, especially the one by Gagné. She displays a lot of energy, but it is hard to see to what end, except for the sake of high energy itself, which quickly runs empty in terms of content. The show only lasts 17 minutes, but it also only costs 5$. Still, as we say in French, j’ai été laissé sur ma faim.

Action/Inversion plays at MAI (Montreal Arts Interculturels), 3680 Jeanne-Mance on the follwing dates:
11 MON 22:30
13 WED 21:45
15 FRI 21:45
16 SAT 20:30

Laberintos, Sooyeon Cho, Carmen Ruiz, Kiani del Valle ***½
Another dance show by students from the Concordia dance program… This one unfortunately opens with Sooyeon Cho’s multi-media solo GEM ini. I say unfortunately only because Cho’s choregraphy is hands down the best work in this program. Choreographers too often use video as a cheap extraneous device, but Cho uses it in brilliant, complex ways and demonstrates a great sense of scenography. The following work, Carmen Ruiz’s Solitude, is ironically a piece for three dancers. I have to admit that I found it rather stale and that I barely remember it already only a few hours later. The last work, Kiani del Valle’s Brujo Científico is a little gem of a solo whose only crime is to slightly overstay its welcome. It does not offer us enough variety of movement to keep us interested quite as long as it strives to. It does end on a hight note though, with many small balls of different sizes rolling onto the stage as the dancer keeps performing, creating tension as she moves across the now hazardous space.

Laberintos plays at Theatre La Chapelle, 3700 St-Dominique on the following dates:
13 WED 17:00
14 THU 20:30
15 FRI 15:45
16 SAT 22:15