World Premiere of “Whack-A-Mole” at the Cowles Center
Black Label Movement to Present the World Premiere of Carl Flink’s Whack-A-Mole at Its 6th MinnesotaSeason at the Cowles Center for Dance & the Performing Arts
June 28-30, 2013, the Minneapolis-St. Paul based professional dance theater Black Label Movement (BLM & www.blacklabelmovement.com) presents the world premiere of BLM Artistic Director Carl Flink’s Whack-A-Mole for its 6th Minnesota season at the Cowles Center for Dance & the Performing Arts in downtown Minneapolis. BLM will also remount Flink’s critically acclaimed work Field Songs, performed on sod with live music by Twin Cities roots rockers The Jinnies. (https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/the-jinnies/id255601967). Flink was a 2012 McKnight Choreography Fellow and both the Twin Cities City Pages 2012 “Best Choreographer” and one of its 2012 Artists of the Year.
BLM’s world premiere “Whack- A-Mole examines the consequences of the ‘endless war’ our United States society has essentially been in since World War II,” Flink explained, “The U.S. military uses the term whack-a-mole to describe insurgency forces, like those encountered during the Iraq War, that it clears from an area only to find those forces have returned shortly after the U.S. troops leave the region. The work isn’t literal. It’s an expressionistic exploration of the cycle ofdestruction and recovery a struggling community experiences during times of never ending strife.”
Whack-A-Mole includes the largest cast (17 movers) BLM and Flink have worked with for a concert dance work. Whack-A-Mole soloist and BLM Artistic Associate Emilié Plauché Flink observed, “Having this mass of humanityon stage raises the stakes for this piece. Carl creates waves of motion and both large and intimate stage images that the work demands, infused with the naturalvirtuosity, daring physicality and intricate detailing that are his hallmarks.” The premiere includes an original soundscape by composer Greg Brosofske, adynamic, moving set and costumes by designer Annie Katsura Rollins and a fresh lighting design by Sage and Ivey Award winner Marcus Dilliard.
Completing the evening, BLM takes its audience to another locale with Flink’s 2009 work Field Songs, a world of fresh sod, soil and live music performed by Minneapolis rootsrockers The Jinnies. Field Songs is a meditation, celebration and rumination on the at times tectonic encounter between rural and urban landscapes. The St. PaulPioneer Press wrote about Field Songs, “Flink creates dances that honor the lives and values of ordinary working people. There is a cleanness and clarity about the way his company of fearless movers slice through space, as if they were clearing the air of arty pretension. Flink also is a sophisticated artist who layers movement and meaning with a sure hand. Like the poet Walt Whitman, he sings the body electric.” May 31, 2009.
Other items of interest related to this season: 1. the prestigious American Dance Festival recently announced that it is commissioning Flink for its 2014 Festival at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina; 2. BLM enters its sixth season with a new generation of dynamic BLM Movers, as a number of long-time company members have had life changes sending them in new and exciting directions, including BLM Artistic Associate Eddie Oroyan now performing with WymVandekaybus’s Ultima Vez in Belgium; and 3. BLM will be in residence with biomedical engineer David Odde in July 2013 at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA.
BLM is a professional movement theater company based in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN dedicated to exploring Carl Flink’s uniquely athletic andballistic approach to choreography and the pursuit of new applications of dance to the human experience.
Read the full article on Minneapolis.org, here.