TIGER PRAWN: THE MOUNTAIN MOVER | CHICAGO DANCE CRASH WHEN Through 7/15: Fri-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM WHERE Storefront Theater, 66 E. Randolph PRICE $15-$20 INFO 312-742-8497
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But as the Crash’s Tiger Prawn: The Mountain Mover proves, dance theater needs a strong theatrical backbone–a suspenseful tale, interesting characters, plot development–to succeed. The company typically combines classic Western forms like ballet and modern dance with moves from martial arts and hip-hop–and the choreography here, by new artistic director Kyle Vincent Terry, is adept and expertly performed. But this 90-minute piece, including an intermission, dawdles despite all the muscular exertion.
Her three human friends are equally confusing. Quarrelsome and combative, in the beginning they make fun of her and give her lowly tasks because of her poor fighting skills–they’re like the stepmother and stepsisters abusing Cinderella. Tiger Prawn’s pratfalls and awkward kicks provide a bit of comedy in this early section, which also establishes a character with somewhere to go: how will Tiger Prawn mature and succeed? Then one scene later she ventures into the forest, gets kidnapped by the Kouken, and presto! She’s a better martial artist. End of that story. Near the end, when her motivation is supposedly to return to and save her abusive human “friends,” you wonder why.
