Reviews

Art of Difference, Melbourne March 2009

2009 Touch Compass: The Sleep of Reason begets Monsters

17th March, 2009
By Colin Hambrook, Editor DAO (Disability Arts Online)

Harmonious Oddity – the triple bill by Touch Compass presented over the first three nights of the Art of Difference Festival began with a piece of Dance for Camera called The Picnic made in 2003. Imagine a bizarre Victorian garden party envisaged through the lens of Alice in Wonderlands' looking glass, peopled by an eclectic mix of strange folk. Playing with images of circus freak show, the piece was a highly polished, original and entertaining whirl around the theme of a pleasant summer afternoon by the river. Each characters' costume took on architectural importance, elegantly and cleverly framed within a fast paced movement. Every frame was staged like an Impressionist painting - with some direct references to Degas' pictures of gentlefolk, white parasols in hand, indulging themselves in social fraternity.

Much of Touch Compass' work plays on the idea of dream images and the surreal. The second piece was a duet with Suzanne Cowan and Adrian Smith called Grotteschi. A gothic horror, the piece told the story of a spider woman, at turns feeding, using and devouring her acolyte. The lighting was used to dramatic effect to capture small, riveting movements of the spider womans' head, torso and her many legs, which at times seemed to fill the stage. A very versatile piece, the work embraced a range of tempo and mood changes from cafe society, to ballroom, to dark subterranean lair.

2008 Harmonious Oddity, Theatreview and Sidestep

TEMPO 08 - Touch Compass - Harmonious Oddity

Thursday 2nd October, 2008
By Felicity Molloy

Harmonious Oddity - Touch Compass Dance Trust for Tempo Dance Festival, Maidment Theatre.

Touch Compass have undergone a metamorphosis. The core dancers have remained the same and the newer dancers fit beautifully with the company’s movement ranges and style, but the dance itself has shifted.

Maybe it is the driving beauty of Suzanne Cowan, her precise and articulate movements capturing the dream range of Miss Muffet, of her Grotteschi story and at times a complicated juxtaposition of who gets who in the spider web, drives this programme forward?

Long-term artistic director and choreographer, Catherine Chappell floats in and out, with grace and durability written in her every movement and moment of contact with other dancers. It was not so much in the filmic exposure of her face, but in the very first danced section where she opened her hands and let air fall resembles an amount of time and matchless giving. This amount of giving takes a long time.

The opening section of last night’s Harmonious Oddity programme gave way to a series of vistas. Touch Compass as a dance company is clear about its direction. The choreographies explore the dancer’s journey. In slightly fantastical movement reveries, Jesse Johnstone- Steele’s subtle and matured theatrical sense fits very well with danced weight trading and relational moments between him and other dance partners. Dan King and Adrian Smith both possess a wonderful masculinity while dancing, their partnership in dance often perfectly couching the elegant sensuousness of newcomers, Kerryn Mc Murdo and Emilia Rubio.

Touch Compass are a theatrical feast – responsive to devices of street theatre, clowning, physical theatre, clearly explored by director, Pedro Ilgenfritz. This tempo Dance Festival 2008 programme is most memorable in this way.

2008 Grotteschi - NZ Herald

Spiderwoman Weaves Her Spell

Saturday 4th October, 2008
By Raewyn Whyte

The standout highlight of Tempo 08's opening week was Grotteschi, an enthralling duet by Touch Compass dancers Suzanne Cowan and Adrian Smith, alias Ava the Spiderwoman and Argyle the Mantis Man, set in and around Ava's lair.

From the opening moments you knew that Ava, in her low-cut frilly red and white polka dot dress with her six dangling legs and her subtle webbing of light, was both queen of all she surveys, and very hungry. So when Argyle, an upside down, inside out, extremely agile and insouciant creature yearning for love came within her reach, you just knew it wasn't going to go well for him.

Choreographed by Cowan, with a carnivalesque score by Charlotte Rose, the dance became a saga of seduction (from his perspective) and parry and feint for domination (from hers), almost entirely achieved through extraordinarily responsive partnering. Tailor-made to exploit the capabilities of these performers, the dance drew sustained applause.

2007 Touch Compass 10th anniversary tour - NZ Herald

Touch Compass 10th Anniversary Season 2007 at Maidment Theatre

Friday October 19, 2007
By Bernadette Rae

Touch Compass celebrates its 10th anniversary with retrospective and new pieces.

It is a rare contemporary dance company that survives a decade in this land, in these strictly by-project funded times. And rare is the individual who conceives, sustains and drives forward a vision as challenging as "integrated" dance. But Catherine Chappell can.

Touch Compass also proves its artistic integrity in this anniversary programme, showcasing a significant body of work from the past 10 years with three live pieces and three short films that look every bit as ravishing now as they did when new.

Films Union, Remotely Driven and The Picnic are pure nostalgia. Union immortalises the relationship between three-legged dog Boiski and his one-legged man, Tim Turner, with images, poetry and sign language creating its own dance. Remotely Driven is a fantasia of colour, movement, life and humour and The Picnic out-Fellinis Fellini in a glorious bachanal across North Head.

Retrospective works are Suzanne Cowan's mythical battle of the gods, Hephaestus and Ares, deeply powerful with Dan King and TC newcomer Jeremy Poi; Malia Johnston's intriguing study of the mechanics of "dissed" ability, with gorgeous Julia Milsom in command; and the seminal TC piece, Lusi's Eden, starring founding member of the company, Lusi Faiva.

The latter is a 30-minute long explosion of choreographed glee that fills the second half of the programme with colour, laughter and hope. Hearts still fly with Faiva as she triumphs over her previously-desolate world.

Two new works add extra spice.

Trace Map celebrates the company's aerial traditions and another of its favourite founding members, with the inimitable Jesse Jackson-Steele centre stage.

The full company of nine dancers, including Chappell, roll, spin, walk and fly through horizontal, vertical and very differently perceived space, with some sequences, like Chappell's tender duet moments with Jackson-Steele, recalling special works gone by.

Then there is Amir-Spinnaret, an exercise in improvisation, an important modus operandi of the company, scored by Felicity Molloy, in which dancers cross and recross the stage, "on their own journey".

Touch Compass' 10-year journey has been truly remarkable.

2006 Acquisitions 06, NZ Listener

Upward Mobility

by Francesca Horsley

Touch Compass have taken their art to another level.

Touch Compass Acquisitions 06 was a brave, intelligent exploration that pushed physical and artistic boundaries, extending dancers and choreography.

The Big, the Bad and the Beautiful by Malia Johnston pulled apart the symbolism of the classic western. To a remix of Ennio Morricone’s music by Eden Mulholland, a series of images – bodies dragged tethered to a rope, tossing manes, feisty saloon girls, a dancer twisting with feet in a noose, the stage littered with corpses – reconstrued the myth. The horse, that faithful but dispensable companion, was celebrated in a poignant tale, told in sequence by each dancer.

An ensemble piece for five dancers, Ground Flaw by Matt Gibbons, explored connecting points – particles, nerve ends, patterns, interlocking bodies. It encapsulated freedom of expression, dispensing with wheelchairs; Gibbons pulled the customary vertical orientation to the floor, creating a level playing field. He began with sinuous, flowing movement that was repeated by the dancers, who combined strength and versatility in shifting fluid sequences. Julia Milsom and Suzanne Cowan were a lithe counterpoint to each other.

Beauty, a video by Bronwyn Hayward, was the story of the passion to dance despite disability. Told simply, it saw Hayward venture into her Holy Grail, the Royal New Zealand Ballet, to take lessons and eventually achieve a dance of her own, suspended in a harness and swathed in silk cloth. Hayward’s determination was admirable; but she is a better live performer, and the film lacked some of the humour and magic she creates on stage.

The mythical conflict between two Greek gods was captured by Cowan’s Hephaestus and Ares. Combining steely masculine grit and inventive movement, the struggle for supremacy of mind and body featured abled-bodied Maaka as Ares, God of War and disabled Hephaestus used unflinching determination and ingenuity to offset his powerful brother. Both were impressive, King hopping at speed, Maaka, prowling and seething.

An anarchic riot of colour, imagery and language clased and railed in Alexa Wilson’s Sequential Roadkill. Wheelchair-bound Lusi Faiva, a shrill Sarah Campus and Tim Turner as a policeman, each decked in a gaudy glitz, went on a headlong journey that epitomized Smash Palace-like chaotic impulses. An empty picture frame as a car window had bizarre objects shoved through it as the trio journeyed into unlikely encounters, shouting out stream of consciousness, sometimes political, slick word-plays.

Catherine Chappell’s Cellular Guide was a utopian, sculptured exposition for the whole company. A poetic and slow-motion work: evocatively lit dancers linked and wove among one another in fluid, sometimes delicate and emotionally charged rhythmic exchanges. Reminiscent of earlier works, it encapsulated Chappell’s vision of the company. MC and comedian Philip Patston interspersed a hilarious commentary, with his customary wit and timing.

This year’s Acquisitions took the company to another level. Disability was scarcely visible; rather, it was merged into the power and integrity of the works.

2005 Ten of Hearts, NZ Listener

Joy

by Francesca Horsley
(The New Zealand Listener, March 26 2005)

Also expressive with virtuoso dancing and characterization was Touch Compass’s Ten of Hearts, part of the Giant Leap International Disability Arts Festival. Choreographer Malia Johnston melded a motley group of characters who told tall tales and performed sharp tricks.

With the audience seated on the grass outside the studio, the company entered from the ceiling – dancers, wheelchairs, props. Accompanied by the 75-piece Aotea Youth Symphony assembled under a marquee, it was an exuberant family event.

A series of episodes, the work shifted between tableaux and narration – some autobiographical, others fanciful – all revealing the triumphs and pitfalls of being disabled. Suspended upside-down from a harness, Bronwyn Hayward recounted a story of wheelchairing a cross-country course. Ever the consummate entertainer, Jesse Steele described his nightmare, complete with percussive vocal effects.

Then they danced: fearlessly flying from harnesses, eloquently pirouetting in wheelchairs, twirling in chains across the stage. The company confirms old truths: when not being perfect makes for wholeness, affirmed through the tapestry of dance.

Panacea Arts Exhibition Opening Performance 25/7/05

Words never say what is felt in the spirit/soul/heart...

by Todd Fernie, AUT Disability Resource Office

The Touch Compass performance breaks through my momentary sense of drab isolation, and captures the collective soul of vibrant possibility that we somehow all share. I feel founded and grounded afterward and my senses are left to rise on the inside as I live life and rise on the outside.

Solidarity and community are regenerated and reinforced through form, shape, expression and an overall ever-fresh impression that lasts.

2005 Ten of Hearts, Danznet

Eclectic Characters Strut Their Stuff

by Sue Cheesman (DanzNet June 2005)

Cascading down to the floor the cast, one by one interspersed with a plethora of props such as wheels, guitar, suitcase, wheelchair frames, enter the studio from on high, with us, including the accompanying Aotea Youth Symphony Orchestra seated, peering in from outside. From our exterior grassy spot on a glorious late summer’s day at TAPAC, we watch Touch Compass’s new work unfold with a stunning start.

Dressed in red, white and black akin to an old fashioned traveling eclective gypsy troupe, Ten of Hearts begins, highlighting members of the company in different ways, with their own cameo roles. These are theatrically captured, providing insight into the real characters this mixed ability company attracts. One such moment sees Bronwyn Hayward supported by other dancers, hanging upside down, satirically telling her story about wheelchair racing/running. The ever so slightly dodgy palm-reading and cardsharp extraordinaire, Rodney Bell, practices his game on chosen volunteers from the audience, much to the amusement of all watching. Jesse Steele’s (a long standing member of the company) story is aptly amplified by his sound effects group of other performers. I am reminded of the silent movie era and those hilarious wonderful characters there-in.

Skilled uses of tableaux give clear structure and are the hallmarks of clever crafting by choreographer Malia Johnston. The dance in unison, duet, quartet and trio forms is interspersed between the dramatic action. Exciting to watch was the circling of three performers, with two in wheelchairs thus cleverly increasing the number of circles we witness.

Ten of Hearts captures the spirit and essence of this special company we know as Touch Compass.

2003 Acquisitions; NZ Listener

2003 Acquisitions Review

LISTENER May 3, 2003
by Francesca Horsley

Touch Compass has a new joyful character – and has taken another step in confidence and artistry with its latest show, Acquisitions which was no longer centred on the struggles of disability. The group performed well-constructed and complex works that deconstructed perceptions of bodily perfection.

Bodies came in all shapes – and movements stretched the dancers’ abilities to the max. Simple steps were compelling, the splits astounding and the dancing was always superb, articulate and polished.
The show was a series of dance works, interspersed with short films. Moss Patterson’s Manawa saw an elastic Matt Gibbons coil and shape smooth patterns, and then joined by three other dancers, trace outlines of kowhaiwhai.

Sue Cheesman’s Playing Society’s Level Fields was a whimsical commentary on life’s expected standards. With a funky and mime-like physicality and measuring tape, the ensemble eagerly checked each other’s dimensions and connections, eventually becoming immobilised in their endeavours.
Strange and surreal, Spoke by Malia Johnston was a sophisticated, clever work. Wheelchair wheels became huge space helmets, halos, giant discuses and dancers spun on elliptical orbits or cartwheeled on crutches.

Grace by Catherine Chappell was stunning. Bronwyn Hayward was suspended in a huge swathe of rich velvet, hovering over her floor-bound partner, Maaka. With only her arms and face visible, they danced together, bird and lover, mirroring each other’s movements – a balletic pas de deux with a difference.
Three films, beautifully framed in the windows of an abandoned building, set a warm tone with vignettes of the dancers, finishing with a Felliniesque picnic and romp in the countryside.

The programme was ambitious, but a little long; the 11 items overloading the senses. Nevertheless, the show was a triumph for Touch Compass’s humour, prowess, intimacy and endearing honesty.

2003 Acquisitions; NZ Herald

2003 Acquisitions - Touch Compass: Maidment Theatre

April 7, 2003
by Bernadette Rae, NZ Herald

Touch Compass has a different look on this outing – several different looks, in fact, with the work of four choreographers and of artistic director Catherine Chappell in the programme.

There are new dancers in the ranks as well, including Boiski, the three-legged dog, who comes close to major star status, especially for his post-performance wander through the auditorium, at least on Friday night.
The old magic is there in Chappell's Grace, a stunning duet for Bronwyn Hayward and Maaka, with Hayward suspended in a dramatic swathe of shiny black for a display of aerial dance of great strength, beauty and grace. 

Magic is also there in the gorgeous short film Timeless, starring dance doyen Dorothea Ashbridge, Chappell, and talented and beautiful 11-year-old Tess Connell. They appear, framed in an elegantly layered series of doors and windows provided by the setting in a bunker on North Head, dancing, reminiscing (Ashbridge) and taking it all in (Connell). Timeless is a rare treasure, whimsical and true.
Film is also used to present Union, Boiski's story with Tim Turner, his (one-legged) man, and the full company spectacle, The Picnic, a celebration of green grass, endless sky, and North Head again, which has Touch Compass in joyful mode, sumptuously costumed, with overtones of Fellini.  The exploration on film is great, three times over. 

Then there is Moss Patterson's Manawa, a sophisticated and lovely exploration of spirals, with totally beautiful lighting; Sue Cheesman's witty Playing Society's Level Fields; Malia Johnston's Spoke, a spinning tale with deconstructed wheelchairs; and An Aversion to Light, by Kristian Larsen, which is, perhaps appropriately, a bit on the heavy side.

Weaving through this wondrous display is the unique humour of Philip Patston, accompanied by a sign language interpreter so that no one misses out.

The finale piece, This Way Up, goes back to the Touch Compass signature specialty of structured improvisation and aerial spectacle, this time with a theme built around the common old cardboard box. It is fun and fantastic.

You leave wondering if there is anything this brave, beautiful, determined and talented troupe can't do.

2002 Tour; The Press

Grace in perpetual motion, Touch Compass at Aurora Centre, Christchurch

March 8, 2002
by Greer Robertson, The Press

Touch Compass Dance Trust is a charitable organization, providing training and opportunities in the performing arts for those with mixed abilities.

Since its inaugural season in 1997, this unique, homegrown company has increasingly captured the public eye, with both the dancers and their audiences sharing a journey of mutual self discovery as the performers overcome both physical and psychological challenges to create and perform the intricate art of dance.

This performance incorporated passionate and occasionally volatile music to accompany an exhibition of grace and purposeful perpetual motion.

The audience witnessed a work compromising both simplistic ideas and a mature, complexity of style.
The underlying, almost Mobius-like theme of the perpetual circle was impressively portrayed with utmost fluidity, whether described by a wheel, a rollerblade, or many other smoothly controlled movements.
A highlight amongst the five performance pieces was a group improvisation by the 10-strong cast, where extravagant, stylistic staging and exceptional and intricate rigging allowed the dancers to experience the sheer exhilaration of free-form flying – with or without wheelchairs.

A work of breathtaking aerial beauty, executed with consummate ease and, before you knew it, your own heart, body and soul wanted to fly with them.

To have witnessed this performance was to experience equality, reality and humility without pretence as the dancers pushed their boundaries of possibilities to surpass and overcome their perceived limitations.

A truly memorable experience to feed the soul and one not to be missed.

2002 Lighthouse; NZ Listener

2002 Lighthouse - Touch Compass

October 26, 2002
by Francesca Horsley, NZ Listener

Imagination is a powerful catalyst for action. Lusi Faiva’s night-time dreams filled her bare childhood bedroom with feminine frills so she could sleep, and spurred her to become a dancer. Touch Compass choreographer Catherine Chappell’s unique vision explores the boundaries of physicality, to produce an inspiring season of dance.

Lighthouse, the mixed ability company’s latest show, held at the Aotea Centre, was a realisation of many dreams, both professional and personal. It kicked off with Flying Improv, a dynamic fast-paced improvisation full of the hallmark Touch Compass movement – and whirling bike wheels, roller blades, spinning wheel chairs, aerial acrobatics and dancers – producing a carnival atmosphere.

The theme of isolation lies at the heart of much of Touch Compass’s work, and the new piece, Lighthouse, was set in a remote Wairapapa fishing village. The shoreline, outlined by a breaker-line of candles, marked the point of loss, tenuous connection and reunion. People united on the sand for disjointed encounters, returning to their minimalist world. Dancers rolled like breakers into the shore, played in the water’s edge. Timeless, words and dancers hung in the air.

More dance theatre than dance, the piece was connected by fragmented dialogue. Wehipeihana’s Maori cadence softly sketched the narrative with subtle humour. At times, the pace was a little slow, the stillness over extended, producing a static stage. As the dancing gained momentum, it juxtaposed and explored movement with skill and strength, centring on duets and aerial sequences. The duet between Chappell and Jesse Steele was especially elegant and tender.

In Lusi’s Eden, personal memories gave the work pathos, offset with humour. Lighting by Clint Buel sculptured the dancer’s bodies, producing a spot lit world of night-time rooms encapsulating loneliness, courage and friendship. The aerial work was stunning, particularly Faiva’s ecstatic flight of freedom and the final duet where Dolina Wehipeihana and Malia Johnson whirled and spiralled like Renaissance angels.

Comedian Philip Patston introduced the show. Not always audible, he marked his point of difference of disability and gayness with wry and relaxed humour, aided by deaf signer Anna Gehrke. Gehrke and Mark Huria remained in the front stage wings throughout the show, signing the intermittent dialogue. Gehrke’s comic signing was a mini show of its own.

Touch Compass is a seasoned company imbued with a confidence to explore themes denied other companies. The relationship between the dancers has matured, limitations and strengths perfectly balanced. Courage is not abstract, freedom as its reward, is clearly visible. There was a moment in Lighthouse, where Bronwyn Hayward was left alone on stage, suspended, orbiting on an aerial rope – a potent mix of daring and vulnerability. To have less was definitely to have more.

2002 Lighthouse: NZ Herald

Buoyed by spirit of the dance – Touch Compass Aotea Centre, Auckland

Monday, Sept 30, 2002
by Bernadette Rae, NZ Herald

Lighthouse, the gorgeous new work in this three-part programme from New Zealand’s unique mixed ability dance company, speaks lyrically and deeply, of and to, New Zealand’s soul.

There is a coastline, an emptiness, a sense of being at the edge, and members of a small community taking tender refuge in each other. The stage is set with a cluster of insubstantial forms that echo the shape of shells or snails. They are illuminated from behind and sometimes fly, adding to their sense of impermanence and fragility. A row of twinkling lights and a shallow stream crosses the front stage. The accompanying music, uncredited, is divine.

A cast of 10 dancers inhabit this world of sea and sand, idyllic in one mood, quietly dangerous in the next, and fill it to overflowing. A duet performed by choreographer Catherine Chappell and Jesse Steele is breath-stopping. Bronwyn Hayward becomes archangel, partnered by Matt Gibbons. Dolina Wehipeihana gives the company a wry, aural voice, in dialogue with actor/dancer Rob Mokaraka. Chappell’s choreography and the vision of director Christian Penny are superb.

The ensemble is greater than the sum of its many splendid parts. It is both real and surreal, transcendent, spell-binding.

Touch Compass and contact improvisation are almost synonymous and the opening piece, Flying Improv, is a spirited and beautiful explosion of movement, aided by flying trusses and wheels, as in wheelchairs, bicycles, tricycles and skates.

Lusi’s Eden, starring Lusi Faiva, was first performed in Auckland in last year’s Dance Festival, but is just as spectacular and touching on a second viewing.

Comedian Philip Patston, who pokes the borax at everything, from being disabled, being gay, and being Catherine Chappell to dance auditions and falling over.

Even the opening night-curtain call is an event – less standing ovation, though there was one, than a heartfelt celebration of the dancing human body in all its wonderful diversity.

2001 3D Dance Package

Lusi’s Eden, Maidment Theatre

April 9, 2001
by Bernadette Rae, NZ Herald

The miracle of Touch Compass Dance Trust, whose mixed-ability dancers come in just about every sort of body imaginable – from the most supple and sound to the incredibly vulnerable, is that on the night each of those bodies and the movements they produce seems perfect.
Unconditionally.

Lusi’s Eden is described as a pilot work for potential future development, but sparkles in this programme alongside offerings from Curve and Auckland Dance Company, like a precious gem, polished and flawless and brilliantly lit from the heart within.

At one point, two very able-bodied dancers perform a gorgeous duet in and around and up and down a rope suspended from above. Moments earlier, Lusi Faiva, a dancer with severe cerebral palsy, stuns the audience with her overhead flight – of freedom, fantasy and fulfilment.

Two guys play out a hilariously macho drinking scene. The one with the perfect comic timing is Jesse Steele. Jesse has Down’s syndrome.

The work is about Lusi’s dream, formed as a very small girl trapped not only in an unresponsive body but in the bareness of a bedroom in her foster home. Pretty dresses, girly things on the dressing table, her very own party were once a world away.

Now just watch the Lusi swing!

Touch Compass is great theatre, great dance, and real succour for the soul. And I nominate Catherine Chappell, its inspirational force, for a double MBE.

2001 3D Dance Package: NZ Listener

Lusi’s Eden

May 5, 2001
by Marianne Shultz, NZ Listener

The real crowd-pleaser turns out to be the final work on the programme, Lusi’s Eden, performed by Touch Compass and created by choreographer Catherine Chappell and director Christian Penny. The eight performers (abled and disabled) dance, speak, sing, run, tricycle and fly, via ropes, to convey a moving tale of loneliness and intimacy. Penny’s influence is evident in the tight structure and focused performances from all the cast.

1999 RESIN8: Danz Bulletin

1999 RESIN8

October, 1999
by Linda Ashley, DANZ Bulletin (excerpt)

Five different choreographers were employed and this gave a suitable variety. I would have been happier with fewer of them and more developed works, which had less room for fluctuation in quality. However the mix was potent.

Humour and a richly gestural language in This Word Love (Carla Martell) captivated and amused as the highs, lows and many contradictions of love manifested themselves in a pas de quatre.

Cerebral contemplation of humans in space in Airborne (Raewyn Thorburn) wove pathways through the very air we breathe. The simple, effective use of the silk seemed to weave a spell in which the audience were trapped. The whole showed a satisfying development of movements, theme and the relationships between the dancers.

In Infinite Sides (Malia Johnston) tenderness was mixed with echoes of the show’s overall deeper values, as mentioned above. The problems of copycat or emulation or reflection of a physical disability were addressed, whether or not it was successfully so is a question that remains. A difficult area which needs perhaps more psychological considerations if it is to really hit the mark. But there was some intriguing vocabulary, and lots of it.

The main work of the evening, Disclosure by Catherine Chappell, is a real promise that this company is movin’ and shakin’. It presented more challenging food for thought and is definitely the way ahead for such work. The fact the dancers had a large input into this dance was clear as through the carefully observed and chosen signature movements their personalities gradually emerged. This was resonant and supported by the sculptures of their hands and feet (Kirsten van de Meijden). The tendency to be a little disjointed was a pity, and there needs to be time spent on the question “When is a transition not a transition?” Perhaps the lighting and difficulty of lack of wing space were contributing factors here. In spite of this the piece was involving, delightful and led to a fine finale.

Throughout, the set (Patsy Blackstock) and costumes (Suzanne Sturrick and Christine Klingenberg) provided substantial enhancement to the evening. As did the terrific accompaniment sounds by Philip Colson.