[Newspaper: 'Stomp' dance performance] Part: 3 of 8
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thanks, not only for what we have
PCP, crack, speed and downers? "The
ite Information on drugs. Send a self-
and a check or money order for $3.65
Lowdown, c/o Ann Landers, P.O. Box
ice, write to Ann Landers at P.O. Boxival of kids,
often change
Smart and savvy professionals,
Doth women knew something like
this might happen. "She asked me
right before she gave birth, 'If I get
too boring about my child, tell me
and I'll try to be better.' How can
you tell someone who has this pre-
cious, precious baby that she should
chill out?"
Another Los Angeles woman, a
16-year-old mother of three young
children, says she suddenly real-
ized how boring she had become to
childless women during a recent
needlepoint class.
"Five of us were sitting at a ta-
Me. We spent the entire evening
talking about kids. 'My son did this.'
My daughter did that.' "
After two hours, she says she
noticed one woman hadn't said any-
hing. She found out the woman
aad no children.
According to social anthropolo-
gist Sheila Kitzinger, author of The
Year After Childbirth (MacMillan,
994), childless women have diffi-
2ulty comprehending why new
others can't organize themselves
etter. "They do not understand
iow restricted life can become and
he superhuman feats of organiza-
ion required to get out of the house
md be on time."
But even as babies drive a wedge
'etween some friends, they also
)ring some people together. Moth-
rs make new, often surprising
riendships, finding common
round with women they never
hought they would - women from
arious backgrounds with different
.nd enlightening ideas on mother-
ng.
It's always possible for old
riends to reconnect when the chil-
.ren are older. At first, what
riends need to understand, Ms. Kit-
inger says, is that "your friendship
i now in a completely different
ontext and needs some working at
you think it's worth maintain-
Ag."
Distributed by the Los Angeles
imes-Washington Post News Ser-
icesome patchouli incense that she cool breeze and treats new custom-
Stomp' plays with fur
Continued from Page 1C.
paranoid, because you've got much
bigger problems with gangs and
guns. But it makes me cringe, all of
that post-punk nonsense. We never
got that response in Britain. Of
course, in Britain, they'd see (the
trash-can lid fights) as some 'clever
new development in avant-garde
dance.'"
He laughs. "Which also makes
me cringe."
Just what to call Stomp has been
a daunting problem even for the
promoters of the show. To explain
things, they simply sent New York
critics a seven-minute preview tape.
It's not that critics must pigeon-
hole everything. It's that many "in-
between," multigenre performance-
art pieces tend to be ineptly
glommed together. Or they're pal-
lid, tentative affairs: dancelike ges-
tures, musiclike murmurings, thea-
terlike tableaux. All of which
makes conveying their essence
akin to reading fog.
A sure hit
Stomp, instead, is a thunderous,
humorous, sensory assault. It's
hand-clap, finger-pop and bang-a-
can dance-theater. Who cares what
this stuff means, just hit something.
"I like that it's hard to define,"
Mr. Cresswell says. "It means it's a
word-of-mouth show."
Curiously - considering how
theatrical and playfully low-tech
the show is - the origins of Stomp
lie in video and film as much as
anything. In 1981, Mr. Cresswell and
Steve McNicholas were founding
members of Pookiesnackenburger,
a busking group that cut two al-
bums and even had a self-titled Brit-
ish television show. The two would
later re-form as Yes/No People, the
official performing-producing band
behind Stomp.
As Yes/No People, the two began
composing, writing, directing and
performing soundtracks, videos, TV
themes and commercials, even han-
dling session work with Elvis Cos-
tello and Bryan Ferry. They also
developed percussion-performance
events, including Beat the Clyde,
which involved floating a drum or-
chestra in the middle of Glasgow's
Clyde River.
But it was the eight-minute "per-
cussive movie" that Mr. Cresswell
and Mr. McNicholas performed for
Bette Midler's Mondo Beyondo that
"triggered" Stomp, Mr. Cresswellsays. Mondo Beyondo is a collection
of short performance pieces by
such artists as dance-clown Bill Ir-
win and "junk satirist" Paul Zaloom
that was brought together by Mar-
tin von Haselberg, Ms. Midler's hus-
band and, with the Kipper Kids, a
performance artist in his own right.
For the video - which involves
the duo rhythmically chopping and
hammering ice blocks to pieces -
the two were flown to New York.
"There was talk about how you
could do something like this for a
short video but not a full-length
performance," Mr. Cresswell says.
"Stomp was put together to prove
that wrong."
Put together from bits and pieces
they'd developed over the years,
Stomp previewed in London before
winning the 1991 "Best of the
Fringe" award at Edinburgh's
Fringe Festival and the 1994 Olivier
Award (the "British Tony") for best
choreography. It has toured Austra-
lia and Europe to acclaim.
Seem familiar?
Some of the bits and pieces have
also appeared as prize-winning TV
commercials. Even if you've missed
the appearances on David Letter-
man and Dateline, you've probably
seen Stomp; you just don't know it.
That Target commercial where the
guys push brooms all over the
place? Or the other one where they
flick their fingers and clap their
hands on their crisp new jeans?
Both were derived from Stomp rou-
tines. So was last year's "ice pick"
commercial with a Coca-Cola bottle
getting chiseled out of ice.
"I like doing them, actually,"
says Mr. Cresswell of the ads. No
art-vs.-commerce whine-and-dodge
here. Surprisingly, it's because the
advertisements - unlike the grand
old art of live thea-tuh - provide
him with complete control: "We
don't accept 'em unless we write
'em, we direct 'em. That's the main
reason we took on the jobs. We con-
trol it."
Beat generation
One thing that can't be so easily
controlled is the way Stomp will
change on tour with the different
venues it plays. New York's Or-
pheum Theater is an old, narrow,
339-seater, dusty and full of Green-
wich Village atmosphere. There, a
performance of Stomp vibrates,
through the floor, rattling your
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[Newspaper: 'Stomp' dance performance], clipping, 1994; (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc916110/m1/3/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.