Review: 'Quixotic: Lux Esalare'

There were moments on the opening night of “Quixotic: Lux Esalare” when I couldn’t decide whether to watch the elegant dancers at center stage or the musicians on either side of the proscenium. So I watched a bit of both. You couldn’t lose either way.

Now in its fifth year, Quixotic offers up an intoxicating mix of haunting visuals, mesmerizing music and flexible hardbodies, with a unique mix of local and out-of-town artists. Staged this year in the 600-seat Spencer Theatre at the UMKC Performing Arts Center, the show gives viewers an up-close-and-personal experience. The effect is a little like watching a Cirque de Soleil show that willfully ignores the tourist audience.

This is non-narrative dance theater that strings together a series of vignettes and set pieces, each one as impressive as the next. From the opening strains of a haunting violin-and-cello piece that soon enough morphs into a propulsive sophisticated rock motif with a world-music sensibility, you knew this show was going to take you on a journey. Indeed it did.

In addition to the phenomenal dancers — Michael Eaton, Lateef Williams, Kim Cowen, Rachel Coats and Angelina Sansone chief among them — the show offered a dazzling performance by aerialist B.J. Erdman and a stunning strongman/balancing exhibition by Olaf Triebel.

And then there was the music. Drummer/percussionist and music director Brandon Draper was, at times, a show unto himself, but he led a crack unit that included violinist Shane Borth and Laura Scarborough, a skilled keyboardist whose expertise on the xylophone contributed some of the most poetic moments of the evening.

When you take into account all the different creative personalities who made this show happen — five composers, nine choreographers, four costumers, a lighting designer and a makeup artist, teams of projection artists, sound designers and scenic designers and a small army of electricians and carpenters — you would assume the potential for derailment was extremely high. Well, the train stayed on the tracks.

My only (and minor) complaint is that the transitions between sequences weren’t as seamless as they were obviously meant to be. But that’s a timing problem that will most likely be worked out as the run continues.

| Robert Trussell, The Star

Additional performances of “Quixotic: Lux Esalare” will be tonight (June 20) and June 25-27 in the Spencer Theater at the UMKC Performing Arts Center. For tickets call the Central Box Office at 816-235-6222 or go the Quixotic Web site.

Comments

[Emily]

Thanks for the review of something a little different. Sounds like a neat show that I might have to check out.

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