Honourable Mention: A Vampire Tale

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On occasion I will come across a dance interpretation of the vampire and, should it be on DVD, I will offer it an honourable mention here. This is mainly because I know so little about dance that it would seem wrong to review the DVD.

A Vampire Tale is a piece performed by the Scorpius Dance Theatre with choreography by Lisa Starry and music composed by Kristofer Hill. I have seen this performed twice, both times at the Bram Stoker International Film Festival and, at the 2012 festival, a DVD was available annotated as version 2.

strange man

Through the medium of dance we get the tale of an innocent drawn into the vampire’s dance, destined to become one of their number having been drawn from the audience by the Strange Man (of course this is a dancer in the audience but the act of breaking the fourth wall in this way allows some audience interaction and a comedic moment). The innocent draws the attention of the alpha male vampire and subsequently the ire and jealousy of the vampire queen.

the medium of dance

Drawn over two acts the show combines comedic moments, gothic imagery (including a coffin dance), aerial ballet and a routine on a tilting table. It all looks rather impressive to me but I am far from an expert on these things. The music is a combination of original, classical and contemporary pieces – the DVD has a sequence with an original piece that, live, used a contemporary piece and one wonders why that was missing on the DVD? The DVD was filmed during a performance at Phoenix Theatre, Little Theatre.