ENTERTAINMENT PICKS, OCTOBER 28-NOVEMBER 3, 2021
Complete listings online at cityweekly.net
Familiar stories can often feel completely new when artist takes a different way of looking at them. That’s the way that Wasatch Contemporary Dance approaches the source material of Lewis Carroll’s beloved stories about Alice and her adventures in Wonderland, as part of the new dance presentation Curioser. As told by WCD and choreographer Jaclyn Brown, Curioser “is a work that investigates mental health issues and their physical manifestations in the body, as well as their impact on social interactions in both isolation and a group setting,” Brown says in an artist statement. “Based on the Mad Hatter’s question ‘Have I gone mad?’… , we navigate this sensitive issue with respect to the community that it affects, and an aim to destigmatize discussion of its related topics.” “During the process of creation, it has been difficult to … embody the various forms of mental illness in a way that deals with the elements of dance, rather than adopting a characterization we do not have experience with ourselves. … We have made
GREG BAIRD
Wasatch Contemporary Dance: Curioser
an immense effort to abstract these concepts into a piece that displays a less-than-literal interpretation.” You can catch Curioser at the Covey Center for the Arts (425 W. Center St., Provo) Oct. 28-29 at 7:30 p.m. nightly. On Oct. 29, 4-6:30 p.m., the company will offer a workshop for dancers 14-18 years old in conjunction with the production. Tickets are $17-$30; face coverings are recommended, but not required. Visit wasatchcontemporary.com for tickets and additional event information. (Scott Renshaw)
Plan-B Radio Hour: Sleepy Hollow You might think that an all-audio dramatic presentation would be easier to stage in the COVID era than an in-person show—but that’s not necessarily the case, according to Plan-B Theatre Company’s artistic director Jerry Rapier. Sleepy Hollow, the 15th installment of the company’s Radio Hour presentations on KUER, was originally planned for last year, but the limitations of the studio’s recording space made it impossible. “At that point [in 2020], no one felt safe, so we just shelved it,” Rapier recalls. “There’s barely enough room to socially-distance the actors in the Radio West studio proper; we have to put them at funny angles. A soundproof room is great for quality radio, but not great for COVID spacing.” Still, though a hybrid of in-person and virtual rehearsals and a lot of that creative arrangement of the team, Plan-B will get to present Matthew Ivan Bennett’s original adaptation of the familiar Washington Irving story about mild-mannered Ichabod Crane (Radio Hour stalwart Jay Perry) and his encounter with the terrifying Headless Horseman. The
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story choice this time came from Radio West’s Doug Fabrizio; “The minute he suggested it,” Rapier says, “it was like, ‘Yeah, let’s do a real spooky Halloween show.’” Radio Hour: Sleepy Hollow will be performed and broadcast live on Friday, Oct. 29 at 11 a.m. on KUER 90.1, with an encore broadcast at 7 p.m. The show will subsequently be available via the Radio West podcast, via the Plan-B Theatre Company app, and on the KUER website page that houses the history of the Radio Hour collaboration. (SR)
