Quick — reread T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (1917) and run over to the Dairy Center for the Arts for 3rd Law Dance/Theater’s “Till We Wake,” a new work co-produced with the Colorado Shakespeare Festival. While the complex, evening-length dance, spoken-word and audiovisual piece is not easy to understand, it’s a feast for the ears, the eyes and the mind. CSF Producing Artistic Director Philip C. Sneed speaks the entire poem as Eliot wrote it, but in a “deconstructed ... improvisational and free manner.” At one point, for example, he utters the passage “... I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be ... “ four times in a row with four different intonations. Choreographic highlights include a duet danced on tabletops, clocklike movements that underscore the poem’s many references to time, and repeated appearances of the coffee cups and spoons with which Prufrock has “measured out [his] existence.” A large screen at the back of the stage speeds us through a century of sobering historical milestones, from Queen Victoria’s funeral cortege and the Russian Revolution to the stock market crash of 1929 and the presidency of George W. Bush. Early 20th-century costumes are by CSF Costume Designer Clare Henkel. 3rd Law’s artistic directors are Katie Elliott (who also takes a prominent role as a dancer in this work) and Jim LaVita.
8pm at the Dairy Center for the Arts, 2590 Walnut St., May 8 & 9. For tickets, come to the box office one hour before curtain time, call 303-444-7328, or visit thedairy.org.—Mary Jarrett
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