theatre of mind, muscle and media
SLEEPWALKERS 2002
a wondrous multimedia theater event rich in imagery original music,
choral singing, puppetry and an explosive theatrical physicality
Haunted by ancient myths and images of the Hereafter, 30 souls cross paths on a timeless road somewhere in the present. In this mystical dreamscape a fantastic procession of characters including the crone, the fanatic, the prophet and the family next door unwittingly co-exist hand in hand. Can they ever wake from this strange existence if they do not know they are asleep?
Design Team Lighting / Stage Manager: Pearl Rea
Costumes / Props: Kari Margolis
Decor: Rick Paul
Puppets and Masks: Kym Longhi
Visual Design Assistant: Mark Ruark
Choral Director: Steven Michael Utzig
Curtain Design: Kym Longhi & Kari Margolis
Assistant Stage Managers: Mark Ruark, Jackie Milbrandt, Julia Carlis
Technical Director: Russ Colliton
Video Operators: Angela Sylvester, Leigh Gice
Decor Assistant: May Lane Bernardo
Assistant Lighting Design: Matt Terwilliger
Set Contruction: Russ Colliton, Dave Cook
Guest Ensemble
May Lane Bernardo, Rob Bevars, Tiffany Boatman, Rhiannon Fisk, Alison Forbes, Lyndsey Groth, Katie Guentzel, Sean Hansberry, Jay Hanson, Sarafina Planer, Nicole Relyea, Anneliese Stuht, Mike Sward, Monica Yung
Musicians:
Danny Boldt, Dee Langley, Rachel Nelson, Daneil Schauer, Dawn Strom, Tong Tran
Choral Ensemble:
Rick Bernardo, Beth Gusenius, William Kempe, Julie Kunkel, Sophie Liu (soloist), Melody Mendis (soloist), Judith Melander, Ton Melander
SLEEPWALKERS was made possible in part with funding from the University of Minnesota's Art's Quarter Project, The McKnight Foundation, MRAC, The Metropolitan Regional Arts Council with an appropriation from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This is a project of Creative Capital Foundation.
Video excepts edited by JPProductions
THEATER REVIEW by Carolyn Petrie
The Pioneer Press 9/26/02
Depending on your view of mortality, the act of spending 90 minutes reflecting on birth, life and death might leave you feeling moved, baffled or even amused. Margolis Brown Theater Company's "Sleepwalkers," an amazing pastiche of trippy meditations on those very subjects, will lead you through all those states and much more. Packed with dense, gorgeous imagery and executed with incredible creative precision, this multimedia event emerges as an awe-inspiring epic.
Margolis Brown's work is generally called "movement theater," a simple label for a complex performance art. Their shows bring together dance, spoken word, visual art, video, live music, wacky props and any other imaginative force that strikes the fancy of co-artistic directors Kari Margolis and Tony Brown.
In the case of "Sleepwalkers," the elements onstage include a breathing desert, a 15 foot ladder, several lifelike baby puppets and seven Grim Reapers. Performed by a cast of 30 actor-dancers and a handful of onstage musicians, the show is like a gorgeous work of surrealist art come to life.
The show's torrent of rich images range from the profoundly moving to the just plain bizarre. In one brilliant, ephemeral pas de deux, a dancer transforms from a toddling baby to a swaggering adult in just a few steps. He and his father share a graceful and heartbreaking journey, supporting each other from the child's infancy until the father's withering old age. In another jaw-dropping, video-heavy segment, lovely female faces morph on a huge, sun-like disk while military planes form moving angel wings on either side of the stage.
Mostly, the stage pictures director Margolis has created defy easy description. They are layered not just with Pearl Rea's majestic lighting and Brown's trance-like original music, but with great humor and emotion by the ensemble, which seems at once a faceless mass and in the next moment a group of distinct, connected individuals.
Ultimately, all of Margolis Brown's overwhelmingly creative machinations exist in order to prompt a simple question: Are we conscious of all that's happening in our lives, or are we all sleepwalkers? Not to worry. The company's amazing dreamscape will keep audiences awake for weeks to come.
dynamic thaatre training
'Sleepwalkers' an awe-inspiring epic
Conceived & Directed:
Kari Margolis
Original Soundscore:
Tony Brown
Multimedia:
Tony Brown & Kari Margolis
Developed With and Performed By:
Core Ensemble
Juliet Alden, Janet Beard, Rhoda Bloch, *Beth Brooks, Erik Hoover, Renee Howard, *Kym Longhi, Gregory G. Schott, Rebecca Surmont, Szilard Varnai
*Associate Artists