So You Think You Can’t Understand Dance


Lucky Plush: Cinderbox 2.0 MAINSTAGE


Saturday, March 22 at 8 pm


Survivor. Duck Dynasty. Real Housewives. Fear Factor. Top Chef. Storage Wars. The Bachelor. It’s impossible to watch television today without coming across reality TV. When Survivor first aired, I refused to watch, thinking it was made-for-television “reality”; years later, I’m now an avid reality television viewer. The programs are water cooler conversation with my colleagues, where we laugh at the situations and take sides during the characters’ arguments.


As much fun as it is, it raises questions: Is it real? Does reality TV have any value other than the pleasure in talking with our friends about it? Why do we enjoy getting caught up in things that may be staged and artificial, and usually aren’t even good? We’ll examine this when dance theater company Lucky Plush performs Cinderbox 2.0.


by LEIGH CHANDLER, Marketing Director


Before I arrived at the Flynn, my knowledge of dance was mostly limited to Solid Gold. After a few years, I’d seen a variety of performances: some beautiful, some less so, and many downright confusing. I knew from talking with people about dance that oftentimes they shy away from attending because they’re afraid they won’t “get it.” I understood that sentiment.


Enter Lucky Plush. In January 2010 I was at the Association of Performing Arts Presenters conference in New York, and a relatively new dance company (whose name I liked) was showcasing a piece called Punk Yankees. When I walked into the room, I saw dancers hanging out on either side of the dance floor. A few were stretching; some talked among themselves; others were posting about the pending performance to Twitter as their tweets appeared on a big screen opposite the audience. It was easy to get drawn in by the preshow alone. Then, as the main event began, I realized it wasn’t a warm-up at all—we were experiencing what it’s like to be a dancer before a performance, demystifying their work. What I found after, though, was perhaps the most accessible dance performance I’d ever seen.


2 | MARQUEE March, April, May


The concept behind Punk Yankees is that people “steal” choreography all the time without a thought; this would never happen in the music industry, or in literature, without a huge penalty. In a matter of minutes, I realized that I was aware of dance throughout history, as the dancers performed famous moves of various companies against a backdrop of text and video about what we were seeing. When they did moves from Beyonce’s All the Single Ladies, it was impossible not to laugh, and the dancers looked like they were having as much fun as I was— I understood dance!


Four years later, Lucky Plush is finally coming to Burlington. With Cinderbox 2.0, the group takes on reality television, and explores the line between observers and the observed. Are we more interested in what’s happening on stage, or in talking with our viewing partners about it? How do we relate what we see in an onstage performance to our own lives? Could we, or do we already, do what they’re doing? Will I understand my addiction to reality television a little better? In addition to great dance, you’ll laugh a lot, and you’ll have something to think about after.


But most importantly, you’ll leave feeling like you “got it.”


Lucky Plush Artistic Director Julia Rhoads received the 2013 Herb Alpert Award, given to mid-career artists with tremendous creativity and ingenuity.


Frédéric Silberman


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