Dracul: Prince of Fire
The Crucible’s 10th anniversary fire ballet was a re-telling of the Dracula story with circus, burlesque, ballet, heavy metal-ish blasts of actual fire, molten metal, and interventions by Rocky Horror’s Brad & Janet, Buffy the vampire slayer, and Michael Jackson’s zombies.
It was somewhat campy but not enough. They drained the radical potential from the Camp. They remade Rocky Horror but forgot the importance of Queer. The ballet took itself way too seriously. The music was bombastic orchestral drama and I didn’t like it. The moment where the undead performed the Thriller choreography was delightful genius. The acrobats were superb. The work was a fantastic, community-based spectacle featuring a large and joyous ensemble of aerialists, dancers and fire artists. The stage was literally on fire!
The performances benefited The Crucible, which is an inspired, populist school for fire and metal arts, based in West Oakland.
(If you want the long long review, read the next post)
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