By David F. Rooney
I had never seen the Mutos O Dance Theatre before so I didn’t know what to expect as I walked through the Performing Arts Centre’s doors on Saturday evening; I could have stayed at home watching reruns of The Walking Dead. Wow! Am I glad I didn’t! The Toronto-based dance troupe’s performance was absolutely amazing!
The two-hour show started off with seven short dance numbers from previous shows and then, after a brief intermission launched into a visually arresting and very funny interpretation of Lewis Carroll’s immortal novel, Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.
Both acts used visually evocative video backgrounds to enhance the show and the active participation of 30 local school children: Tristan Herle, Nich Serrpuya, Ruby Serrouya, Annabelle Thomas, Arden David, Rebecca Nelson, Danielle Dugay, Emma Mair, Mika Scott, Emily Hunt, Taylor Jarvis, Madeline Hunt, Loren Morabito, Lia Morrow, Hailey Christies-Hoyle, Kaidynce Vigue, Frankie Howe, Jade Davies, Alexi Mostert, Thomas MacDonald, Ruby Zebroff, Junter Stewardson, Violet Zebroff, Suri Stewards, Isobel Bray, Aidan Lawrence, Natalie Morrone and Leila Daigle. The kids’ roles were simple, energetic and very, very effective whether they were dancing in the background during some of the five dances from previ0us shows or acting as the Queen of Heart’s minions during Alice. In a word they were terrific.
As a final note I’d like to point out that there4 were about 150 people at the show. Many of them were parents and grandparents ho wanted to see their families’ kids in action. There’s nothing wrong with that but I am willing to bet, judging by the adults’ reaction to Mutos O Dance Theatre, they’ll happily pony up a few bucks to see them again, with or without local kids. This was that good. (Please click hre to l;earn more about Mutos.)
I could go on and on but I think seeing is believing. And although I didn’t shoot any video of the show, I did take 319 photos, 56 of which are reproduced as combo images below. Some of the largest ones are assembled from individual photos that capture the individual steps and movements professional dancers Jack Langenhuizen, Alan McIntosh, Natalie Radford, Sarah Felschow, Laura Day, and Jack and Cynthia Croker. I hope you enjoy them:
