The show directed by Ross Manson and Kate Alton, which combines physical, vocal and visual performance of four talented performers. There is no dialogue in particular; four performers use their excellent body language and voices to explain poems. They explore those poems by providing magnificent vocal performance and skilled dancing movements. The singing, dancing and projection on the screen connects everything together which presents a beautiful poem story.
“The four horsemen“ is a poetry group consists of Rafael Barreto-Rivera, Paul Dutton, Steve McCaffery and bpNichol; bpNichol is well known for his concerte poetry. Many parts of those poems in the show are written by bpNichol, who is the main influence in this show.
Naoko Murakoshi, a Japanese performer dresses like a high school student, introduces and concludes the show in Japanese brings mystery to this show. She acts like a modern Japanese girl with very cute personality. Even though I do not understand Naoko’s Japanese, I can still feel her emotion and what she tries to say through her body language and her facial expression. Naoko only has one costume in the show, she is the person who starts the show with a funny performance of a kind of words-changing game, the drum and wheel! The funny pronounce of those two worlds and skilled body movement makes audience laugh. The projection on the screen behinds her changes while she speaking different vocabularies.
Andrea Ann, the performer with the longest hair dresses like a first nation lady initially. Her special vocal brings me a new feeling of sound poetry. Her beautiful vocal performance to the sly change with the body movements and the facial expression, explains the art of sound poetry.
Jennifer Dahl the real dance artist of the show, her perfect dancing movement hits the mark of the music. In her ethic costume with her strong movement, you can see a strong woman performances the poetry with her soul. It is like a visual feast for me.
Graham McKelvie, His amazing vocal and physicality movement is a brilliant an solid anchor for the group,
Visual, the design of the stage