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Spreading the Love at City Hall

city hall.jpegArts events aren’t a common occurrence at City Hall in San Francisco. But they should be.

Hundreds of people flocked to the venerable old building on Friday at noon to witness a jubilant Love Everywhere, a new dance-theatre production by local choreographer Erica Chong Shuch.

The piece commemorated the sixth anniversary of the weekend when San Francisco city officials began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Given the current political turmoil surrounding this subject, the event, which was free to the public, couldn’t have been more timely. Though conceived in a celebratory mood with a klezmer dance party at the end, a sense of solemnity still hung over the piece.

I’ve seen Shuch, a prodigiously talented choreographer, do much better work from a purely artistic standpoint — the choreography, which evoked simple old fashioned dance steps such as the waltz and tango, was predictable and crowd-pleasing and the messaging about happy same-sex couples was heavy-handed.

But there was such an infectious energy to the piece, with its 49-strong cast, 13-piece live band and two singers, and Shuch used the marble-lined enclaves of city hall so inventively, with groups of performers spread all around the space, that Love Everywhere ended up being a galvanizing event nontheless. At the end of the day, Shuch’s brilliant was to bring so many people together under the cupola at City Hall rather than create a breathtaking work of art. And there’s definitely artistry in that. I felt mobilized by the time I left.

lies like truth

These days, it's becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between fact and fantasy. As Alan Bennett's doollally headmaster in Forty Years On astutely puts it, "What is truth and what is fable? Where is Ruth and where is Mabel?" It is one of the main tasks of this blog to celebrate the confusion through thinking about art and perhaps, on occasion, attempt to unpick the knot. [Read More...]

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