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thoughts on Approaching Ecstasy
I was going to write a compendium of reviews and audience comments for this post. There’s been a great outpouring of praise for Approaching Ecstasy, which makes gratifying reading for everyone concerned with this choral/dance [...]
lighting ecstasy— Jeff Forbes
There is such tension in this program between external constraint and interior feeling. It is expressed in Approaching Ecstasy in the contrast between the flat, uncompromising angles of the unadorned stage; the rectangular set pieces; [...]
setting the stage – Casey Curran
Thursday update: Just before the start of yesterday afternoon's rehearsal, Casey Curran badly cut a thumb in the line of duty. He got a skin graft and has a huge bandage now, but is on [...]
approaching ecstasy – on stage
Next week is opening night for Approaching Ecstasy, Whim W’Him’s inventive collaboration with The Esoterics (Intiman Theatre, May 18-20 www.Brownpapertickets.com ). First taste of the theater this last Tuesday and Wednesday nights. Quite a mass [...]
dancing lives – Shane Ohmer
Shane Ohmer has been performing with Bad Boys of Dance as a lead dancer in Rock the Ballet. He has the buff body and stern/dangerous, almost sulky James Dean look you’d expect in that role. [...]
approaching ecstasy from multiple directions…
One of the most intriguing aspects of Whim W’Him artistic director Olivier Wevers’s approach to this suite of danced/sung poems (to debut May 18-20, 2012 at Intiman Theatre) is how he varies his choreographic treatment. [...]
costuming – Anastasia Armes
Anastasia with 6-year-old daughter Mila Anastasia Armes grew up in Russia in the middling size city of Saratov on the Volga River, the sort of place, she says, “mentioned in passing in Chekhov [...]
rehearsing – with The Esoterics
A two-part, 24-member choir is disposed in two rows, 12 facing 12, across the rehearsal hall. Onstage they will be positioned along the sides where the wings would usually hang. Throughout the 90 minute piece, [...]
rehearsing-in the studio with Whim W’Him
Exciting to be back in the studio yesterday, observing Olivier Wevers and the dancers create. Lots of progress in the past week. And soon we'll have some new photos too! When I arrived from the [...]
dancing lives-Chalnessa Eames
When Chalnessa Eames resigned from Pacific Northwest Ballet last spring, she deliberately refrained from speculating on what she might do next. “I feel,” she said then, “that I have reached a professional plateau and need [...]
About the writer
Victoria Farr Brown is a former historian, a writer, now mostly of fiction, and a long-time lover of dance. She has written about Whim W’Him from its first steps in 2009.