Comprehension Passages
Everyday Wonders
from Tonight Time Out 25 August, 2000
The use of ordinary objects in Stomp shows our capacity to overcome limitations through creativity, writes DARRYL ACCONE.
WHAT: Stomp
WHO: Tim Parker, Manasseh Jackson. Scan Edwards, Ukachi Akalawu, Raquel Horsford, Nigel Clarke, Jeremy Dolan, Billy Hickling, Rory Flores, Andres Femandez, Naomi Richards, De-Napoli Clarke
CREATED and DIRECTED by Luke Cresswell and Steve McNicholas
WHERE: Standard Bank Arena
WHEN: Tuesday to Friday at 5pm; Saturday at 5.30pm and 9pm; Sunday at 2pm and 5.30pm. Season ends September 10
Put your hands together for Stomp, the show that has everything including the kitchen sink.
Washing up blues will never be the same once you've seen what Stomp's rhythm-rapping performers can do with a sink filled with a little water and casually strung over the shoulders. Stroking, striking and drumming on the corrugated drying area of the sink, they create a kitchen orchestra pizzicato and a household skiffle without the singing guitarist.
It is a virtuoso display on the most mundane of objects and it typifies the imagination, creativity and humour that make Stomp a thing of wonder. It is a piece of mobile musical art that uses the workaday - including brooms, buckets, plastic bags, barrels, bins and bin lids - to create a universal language that is easier to follow than Esperanto, If harder for the performers to transmit.
Stomp zeroes in on that most vital of human signs, the pulse. From there, it proceeds to elaborate on beats and rhythms, using found objects to generate a restless, perpetual soundscape. And, naturally, some outrageous and zany visuals that pack both overt and subversive humour.
Throughout Africa the 45-gallon oil drum has demonstrated its usefulness, but it has never seemed quite so versatile as here, deployed in tandem with a ski-boot attached on top of each drum and a performer's feet stuck into the boots.
What this ceaselessly inventive show demonstrates is the transformational magic of everyday materials. Take the plastic shopping bag, that accidental national flower much hated by tourism and environment minister Valli Moosa (and countless others too). Here, as a found object, it becomes a key part of a rhythm trio who, moments before, were just three disgruntled people sitting on a rubbish heap.
Abdullah lbrahim has often pointed to the healing powers of music; Stomp is an eloquent, voluble demonstration of the restorative effects of sound. Plastic bags aside, there is the remarkable sight and astonishing sound of plastic bottles from office water-coolers spinning in arcs of luminosity and then being played to sound almost marimba-like. And, who would have thought sections of rubber pipe could be made to give off didgeridoo tones?
Musicality is but one element. Stomp has sequences choreographed to pinpoint accuracy, involving multidisciplinary skills drawn, among others, from martial arts stick-fighting.
There are Zippo lighters keeping the beat; boxes of matches converted to skiff, ie. boards; garbage bin lids used as cymbals and shields in controlled frenzies of stylised combat. (Back in the mid-1980's, the Stomp crew made those memorable Heineken beer ads using garbage bins and lids.) And don't forget the humble broom. Not since Mickey Mouse's apprentice caused all that trouble in The Sorcerer's Apprentice sequence in the original Fantasia has a broom produced so much enjoyable mischief and mayhem. Cleaners of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your brooms.
Thrown in is a good measure of rubbery-limbed humour and physical comedy, reminiscent of the fabulous Parker brothers as seen in the film Funny Bones. Film buffs should also be on the lookout for the infernal industrial scene paying homage to Metropolis, this is very positive rage against the machine.
Finally, marvel at what hands clapping, fingers snapping and feet tap-dancing can do. The 12-strong company provides different casts of eight for each performance; the opening night octet were breathtaking.
Stomp is spectacularly imaginative and seamlessly executed entertainment that purveys an articulacy beyond words. It is also a cheering example for the arts in South Africa because it shows the capacity of the human spirit to overcome limitations through creativity
By taking the ordinary and enriching it by endowing it with humanity, Stomp is a vehicle of the most empowering kind.
Questions
- Did Darryl Accone enjoy the show? Quote a sentence from the passage to support your answer.
- In your own words, say briefly what the show was about.
- Why does the writer call the plastic shopping bag, a "national flower" (paragraph 6) ?
- What does the word "accidental" suggest about it?
- In what way is the word "accidental" not appropriate?
- The writer uses alliteration frequently. Quote one example from the passage.
- Given the nature of the show, why do you think he chose to use this figure of speech?
- What do the following words mean? Use your dictionary if necessary.
- pizzicato (paragraph 2)
- virtuoso (paragraph 3)
- Esperanto (paragarph 3)
- subversive (paragraph 4)
- versatile (paragraph 5)
Writing Exercise
Write a review of your favourite TV show. Set it out as above. Remember not just to tell the plot. You don't want to give away the ending! Why should your reader watch the show? Remember to comment on the acting.
