Hush Now, Sweet High Heels and Oak | 2013
Photo: Ted Lieverman
23rd Street Armory
Philadelphia Fringe Festival
WHYY review
September 11, 2013
Howard Shapiro
Hush Now Sweet High Heels and Oak. The question arises: Must Brian Sanders, the popular artistic chief of the brazen locally-based dance group JUNK — a Fringe festival regular — be choreographing differently, now that he’s had a hip replacement? If his current Philly Fringe festival production is an indication, the answer is clearly, no.
Indeed, “Hush Now Sweet High Heels and Oak” is more demanding of its six dancers — five male (Teddy Fatscher, Billy Robinson, Tommy Schimmel, Connor Senning and Miles Yeung) and one female (Laura Jenkins) — than anything I’ve seen him choreograph recently.
To a lilting score of “Lullaby and Goodnight,” “Hush, Little Baby” and other kids’ songs, arranged and recorded by Sanders’ sister Stephanie, the dancers take to a dreamy stage of mattresses where they play and climb massive sheets hung from rafters at the 23d Street Armory, off Market Street. Eventually, they climb a tall tree oak tree, a convincing piece of scenery built for the show and at one point beautifully lit in green designs from within (Jay Madera’s lighting).
Some dangle dangerously by one foot from short ropes suspended from the rafters. Others swing from rope to rope. Three of them walk or run on high steel heels. They are all buff and gorgeous and dance with a raw physicality on a stage overlain with sand, enjoying the possibilities around them.
I’m not a dance critic, but I’m writing about Sanders’ show because, like his other work, it’s highly theatrical and full of ideas. When, at the end of “Hush Now Sweet High Heels and Oak,” the troupe bounds in from the sides of their primal, sandy world, flipping through the air within inches of one another then rolling across the sand and beginning all over, it’s perfect symmetry and spectacle. The dancers become the crests of waves crashing in front of you, as if summer is alive again.
