Dust to Dust
By Deanne Gertner
Presenting Denver
Wonderbound has set the bar high the past few years, taking on ever-increasing artistic challenges: collaborating with the Lighthouse Writer’s Workshop’s Michael J. Henry, integrating sculptures by RedLine Denver artists into a performance set inside the gallery space, working with local photography powerhouse couple Mark Sink and Kristen Hatgi Sink, performing to the area’s best musicians from DeVotchka’s Tom Hagerman to Ian Cooke to Paper Bird and the Colorado Symphony (four years ago Wonderbound vowed to perform only to live music). Perhaps, with the production of Dust, playing through April 30, 2016, Wonderbound has taken on its biggest challenge yet: merging dance with theater.
Dust pairs Wonderbound with Curious Theatre and Denver musician Jesse Manley along with his band in what Artistic Director Garrett Ammon describes as Wonderbound’s “most epic” performance to-date. Written by Curious Education Director, Dee Covington, Dust takes a fictional town on Colorado’s plains in the 1930s as its scene. Dust is less musical theater and more theater/dance hybrid. Narrative has become a bigger and bigger driving force in Wonderbound’s productions over the years it seems, so this kind of cross-genre work feels like an inevitable next step in their artistic growth.
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