Diana Tokaji, transplanted
San Francisco poet and choreographer, is joined by a phenomenal cast of
performers at the Warehouse Theater Main Stage as part of the Capital Fringe
Festival in Washington D.C. this coming July.
Tokaji and her collaborators
speak with dance, words, sign language and song. “In the Hut” offers up the
ridiculous in mime and repetition. “Loss for Words” is heart-wrenching
from a young child’s perspective yet danced with mature grace and beauty.
“One Grain,” a lyrical dance offset by percussive jolts, is
accompanied by Annie Johnstone's crystalline voice and Ellen Barlow's weave
of physioballs. Caribbean actress Diann Marshall and local artist
Jeanne Feeney dive into the wilds with Tokaji's dance/story "Monkey
Secrets," and Feeney's poignant "Untouchables."
From Nigeria comes soprano
Chinwe Enu, filling the theater with lush vibrato in a duet of dancer and
opera singer together on stage. Elijah Balbed, saxophonist and 17-year-old
creative prodigy, opens the show with his boldest and most sensitive tones.
And the acclaimed David Jernigan, renowned on the jazz scene, honors the
stage with his savvy range on stand-up bass, from haunting to humorous.
When Sign Language Dramatists speak interactively with the poet, an
explosion of language occurs: audible, visible, sensory. The show
closes with “Pneumonia: Three Little Birds,” tiaras decorating the
performers as they fall out of chairs.
A rare braid of dance that is aesthetically classic yet twisted with jazz,
live music and spoken word of the most fully committed sound, and sign
language that is art and poetry itself, The Voice was prompted to write of
the previous WEERD SISTERS production, “There really should be a new word
for what they do.”
