Recent Stories with tag live at the forum

Alice Gosti and Devin McDermott in "Spaghetti Co." (Photo: Tim Summers)

Near the beginning of Alice Gosti's Spaghetti Co. (Something just happened at 1:19 p.m.) a big bowl of pasta with red sauce is just that...a big bowl of pasta with red sauce, probably very tempting if you showed up to the Northwest Film Forum prior to dinner--it's part of the Forum's "Live at the Forum" performance series and ends with an 8 p.m. show tonight, December 18.

But by the end, the food has transubstantiated: the pasta is a doughy yeastiness in the air, a slippery cushion on the floor, the red sauce a gouache over the canvas of the body. While the people in the front row have had occasion to use their protective trash bags, the people in the second row are primed to duck the occasional rogue strand that heads their way.

The three striking young women (Alice Gosti, Laara Garcia, Devin McDermott) gathered so decorously around the table--bright red lipstick, fingernails, toenails--have buried their faces in their plates, poured wine in torrents, grabbed handfuls of pasta from the serving bowl, and worried at huge bites like dogs with a bone. Their chic little white dresses (by Mark Ferrin) are stained, and they have pasta in their hair and between their toes. While it sounds like Gallagher, it's surprisingly deliberate in pace, and nuanced, illuminating both the beauty and comedy to pasta unfurling in flight through the air, while capturing facet after facet of the social matrix that spans the table. ... (more)

Amy O'Neal and Ellie Sandstrom in "too," this Thurs.-Sat. at NW Film Forum. Photo courtesy of amyo/tinyrage.

"Also, I'm really fascinated with ninja lore. Like a lot of people," said Amy O'Neal, and we both started to chuckle. Having just watched Ellie Sandstrom and her rehearse at the Northwest Film Forum, where O'Neal's dance piece too will be the second installment in their new "Live at Film Forum" series (this Thurs.-Sat.; tickets $12-$15), we had retreated to Caffe Vita to talk over coffee, and were getting sidetracked discussing In the Fray, the solo dance piece O'Neal will be debuting at this year's Northwest New Works Festival.

While she offered the cerebral description of the show as being "about how we create fictitious fights with our self," she had politely gone on to explain how the movement was coming out of her longstanding interest in fighting (though she admits to never actually having gotten into a fight), boxing (which she was "obsessed with" for two years), and, of course, ninjas.

"A lot of times, when I'm dancing or teaching, I'm imagining dancing with swords, or having some sort of imaginary foe that you're dancing with," she said. "A lot of times, I'll be like, 'Okay, this leg comes over here'"—she mimed something swinging toward her head—"'imagine someone's kicking over your head and you have to duck that. Imagine the ninja stars coming at you, you have to get down to the floor or that thing is going to stick you in the head.' I'll use things like that in class so that people will do something, they'll put themselves in a scenario so that something's at stake."... (more)