Loud and trashy

Don’t call it a musical and don’t call it a play. Just call it unique.

STOMP, a performance art group in which members make music with everyday objects, took the stage last night for the first of its three performances at Syracuse’s Landmark Theatre. Though the crowd was small, it, like the performers, made up for its lack of size with sound.

The performance started with a simple push broom. One man, sweeping the floor in front of an array of empty barrels, started the first song with a simple beat. He spray-painted walls and a collage of buckets, street signs and cookware. Other cast members slowly added to the rhythm, building the volume and complexity of the sound before coming to an abrupt halt.

‘Incredible,’ said Diane Smileuske, 49, a Syracuse resident. ‘It really brought you into the show.’

Performers went on to play two additional songs, which used only push brooms to create the beat. The final push broom melody was provided by a lone performer using the knobs of two push brooms and his feet.

The instrument of choice then switched from broom sticks to matchboxes. Performers stood at center stage and turned a seemingly normal matchbox into a tribal drum circle. Each member took a solo turn as others kept the initial beat going.

The true talent of the performers, though, came out in a song using Zippo lighters. The combination of a light clicking sound with the flicker of lighters being lit and extinguished added a soft, jazzy feel to the show.

‘It’s amazing what they can do with ordinary objects,’ said Heather Breed, a 21-year-old Syracuse resident. ‘They make it look so easy.’

The performance then became even more sonically basic as performer Chris Fabian Rubio came onstage with the next instrument: himself. Rubio tap danced onstage while clapping, turning himself into a human drum kit. He showed the audience’s lack of rhythm through a clapping ‘call and answer’ medley, in which viewers were quick to react to his seemingly simple beat, though many lost count as the beat grew faster.

The show had a comic twist as well. Cast member Andres Fernandez, a slightly overweight Hawaiian with an enormous afro, portrayed a percussionist who was a little slower than the rest. Fernandez would routinely appear onstage in the middle of songs with no idea of what was happening. When the time came for Fernandez’s big solo, cast members continually interrupted him.

Other male performers joined in on the comic side of things as well. With sinks full of water and dishes strapped around their necks to hang in front of their stomachs, performers positioned themselves over an empty bucket. At the end of the song, each performer pulled the drain on his sink, giving the illusion of a urinal in use.

‘It was surprisingly funny,’ said Amy Smileuske, a 25-year-old Syracuse resident. ‘It really added to the show.’

The show continued with new instruments, all the while making use of every area of the stage. Performers used cloth shoes, mops and plungers to clean some of the puddles made during the sink song while, at the same time, creating a new rhythm of their own.

At one point, the theme of the show switched from a comical mood with catchy beats to a more intense mood enhanced by tribal rhythms. Performers used wooden sticks to play a heavy tribal beat, and enacted a battle scene, which was portrayed in shadows by lights cast on the side walls of the theater.

Big sound continued as male performers walked across the stage with metal barrels attached to their feet, and female performers played bass tones using empty plastic garbage cans.

The high point of the performance, though, came as performers strapped themselves to wires and swung used street signs, buckets, recycling bins and cookware, all of which were attached to a chain link fence. Visually and musically, this song was the most difficult and complex of the night.

The night closed in the legacy of the original STOMP performance: using garbage cans. Performers went into a lengthy jam using aluminum garbage cans and lids, along with plastic cans. The crowd rose to its feet at the end of this song, under the impression that this was the end the performance.

A few audience members left after this song, beating the traffic but missing out on a great final song, which included heavy audience participation. Using every part of the set, performers gave an amazing end to an overall incredible show.

‘It’s hard to pick and choose which songs I liked the best,’ Breed said. ‘It was all so entertaining.’

Published on September 28, 2004 at 12:00 pm