Is the Future Safe from SNAFU Dance’s New Earth Bandits? Look on as we present images from Sunday evening’s performance.
For folks unable to attend SNAFU Dance‘s New Earth Bandits because it’s a regional show, I offer a sequential journey on what I experienced. Please visit the prior article for a full review and synopsis. Although there was lots to take in, the visual spectacle and journey of these remaining survivors of Earth (and visitors to) was amazing to behold, and plus, we got a terrific sunset to experience as the show drew to a close. Not included are images of the closing act, since some spoiler info should be kept masked.
You’ll get plenty of exercise walking up and down the hills around Macauly Point Park to discover where the New Earth Bandits are hiding in SNAFU’s latest.
From Interstellar Elder to Kitt and Jane(both shows I’ve seen and reviewed), The SNAFU Society of Unexpected Spectacles has an all new show! I’m not sure if they’ll tour this because it’s very site specific, but for anyone visiting Victoria, BC‘s Macaulay Point Park, they’ll be in for a treat! Here, their latest, New Earth Bandits, sends visitors (theatre attendees) to the future where a colony of humans, mutants, and animals kind of belligerently live together.
Also, I found space aliens! They didn’t join the visitors (theatre attendees) to figure out what’s going on. Instead, we’re told the year is 7023. In where we started, the portal to which everyone steps through takes us there and what’s presented is a glimpse of what may be this planet’s last dance, if we don’t change our ways.
By Ed Sum
(The Vintage Tempest)
Location:
Langham Court Theatre 805 Langham Crt Victoria, BC
Remaining Shows: Sep 1, 10:00 pm
Sep 2, 2:30 pm
Kitt & Jane is quirky enough to make me wonder if co-creator Ingrid Hansen also drew inspiration from Disney’s Star vs The Forces of Evil. If this cartoon ever gets made into a live action film, I feel she should be cast! The efforts she put into the characters she plays is unfettered and unique. She co-created this show with Kathleen Greenfield. The subtitle to this work is An Interactive Survival Guide to the Near-Post-Apocalyptic Future and I can see where the interactive comes in (more on this later). Other shows this play drew influence include Gravity Falls and Adventure Time. I feel Star is closer to this play than the others when considering I have been recently watching too much of this toon during DisneyXD’s free preview month.
This show is perhaps the most technically extravagant. In between the projection work, lighting effects and musical performances (including a real live streaming event; folks can follow along on #kittandjane. Just where it can be streamed, I could only find older streams than the latest), the tale between two prepubescent teens is especially poignant. I noticed the growing relationship more than the other story beats. Kitt (Hansen) believes the world is coming to an end, and the boy who stands by her side (oddly named Jane, played by the incomparable Rod Peter Jr.) is with her thick and thin!
The Vancouver Fringe Festival is in full swing and one show I heartily recommend is SNAFU Dance Theatre‘s Interstellar Elder. This physical performance comedy has been touring the Canadian Fringe scene and I have hopes for it to continue touring in the States next. The joy needs to spread, much like how anyone can trace the International Space Station across the night sky from anywhere around the world. This presentation brings moments from PIXAR’s Wall*E to life and the pathos from the movie Passengers into a live show. Kitt (Ingrid Hansen) is the spaceship’s “sleep custodian” and she is a geriatric which adds to the irony of who is taking care of whom. Is it the spaceship or her? She did not wake up by accident.
Somebody has to maintain the systems of this cryogenic spaceship waiting for the Earth to become habitable again. Sort of like the computer animated film, humanity made a mess of things; centuries will have to pass before the planet can be repopulated. At least thirty human generations will have to pass and to see how Kitt deals with this fact drives this show. At the same time, she also carries on as best she can and weighs in on the consequences of waking up a fellow passenger to take the loneliness away.
From
By Ed Sum