Weekend in
PREVIEW
The following list is a brief
guide to various weekend
events. Please call venues for
more information.
CONCERTS:
Duffy’s Tavern, 1412 0 St.
Sunday: Shaking Tree
Knickerbockers, 901 OSL
Friday: Swerve, Maze Fate
Saturday: 8th Wave
The Zoo Bar,
136 N. 14th St
Friday and Saturday: Lucky
Peterson
THEATER:
Lincoln Community
Playhouse,
2500 S. 56th St
Friday, Saturday, Sunday:
Charlie and the Chocolate
Factory
Call for show times.
Star City Dinner Theater,
Eighth & Q streets.
Friday, Saturday, Sunday:
School house Rock
All shows start at 7:30 p.m.
Lied Center hr Performing
Arts, 301 N. 12th St
Friday, Saturday and Sunday:
“Tap Dogs”
Call for show times.
Mary Riepma Ross Film
Theater,
12th and R streets.
Friday, Saturday, Sunday:
“Clockwatchers”
Call for screen times.
Wagon Train Project,
512 S. Seventh St.
Saturday: Fourteen on the
Floor, 7:30 p.m.
GALLERIES:
Gallery 9,124 S. Ninth St.
Oil paintings by Wendy Jane
. Bantam, through Sept 27th.
Haydon Gallery,
335 N. Eighth St.
Recent paintings by Tom
Rierden, through Sept 27.
Great Plains Art Collection,
215 Love Library,
13th and R streets.
“Beyond the Horizon: Robert
Sudlow and Keith
Jacobshagen," through this
weekend.
Sheldon Memorial Art
Gallery,
12th and R streets.
“The Art of Science:
Documenting the Unseen, the
photographs of Harold
Edgerton," through Sunday.
“Contemporary California
Painting: the Gribin Gift,"
through Sunday.
Aussie-inspired troupe
turns work into art
By Liza Holtmeier
Staff writer
In Australia, if you work hard, they call you a dog.
The members of the dance troupe Tap Dogs want to prove they’re worthy of the
name.
This weekend, ‘Tap Dogs” will perform a 90-minute show of non-stop pounding,
boot-smacking tap at the Lied Center for Performing Arts.
‘Tap Dogs” consists of six men with varying degrees of dance training who take the
energy and rhythm of tap into the construction site.
Their show, based on the choreographer’s experience as a steelworker in Australia,
capitalizes on the life of the physical laborer. The world of construction pervades the
entire show - right down to the Bludstone-booted feet of the dancers.
for Australian
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weekend at the
“They are the best things I’ve ever danced in, in my entire life,” Tap Dog
Anthony Locascio said. “We’re able to stomp a lot harder. If we were wearing reg
ular tap shoes, we’d run through a pair every two or three days. When I come off
stage after a show, my boots have gashes from all the metal onstage.”
The metal is part of the show’s set, which the dancers build as the performance
progresses. They erect metal girders, ladders, harnesses and wood platforms.
After all the physical exertion, the dancers are dog tired by the end of the show.
“You have to be very physically fit to even audition for the show,” Locascio
said. “We tap up and down the ladders. We have a guy who hangs upside down
from a harness and taps. We are tap athletes.”
In addition to its athleticism, the choreography of “Tap Dogs” consists of a
variety of rolling steps and syncopations. Instead of being counted in normal
eights, dance steps begin in the middle of an eight count and roll into the middle of
the next Some steps are even counted in sevens.
“Tap Dogs” is one of a number of shows that has risen from the tap-percussion
genre to worldwide acclaim in recent years. Shows like “Bring in ‘da noise, bring
in ‘da funk” and “Stomp” have garnered awards and an avid following across
America.
Stephanie Chase, a former Radio City Music Hall Rockette and New York
dance instructor, has seen all three of these shows.
“They’re a major force right now,” Chase said. “They turn people on to dance
that would otherwise never go. I think choreographers are realizing that the uni
versal goal is to get people into the theaters and show them what it’s about”
Chase, who now owns and teaches at Lincoln’s Dancerschool, 701 P St, saw
the Tap Dogs when they first opened in New York.
“It was a phenomenal experience. It’s so today. The rhythms are incredible, and
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but it’s a history that has diversified.” DANCE INSTRUCTOR
The “TaD Does” history finds its roots back with
Australian choreographer Dein Perry. As a youth, Perry attended a makeshift tap
dance school with his friends in a steel town north of Sydney, Australia.
But at 17, with no dance prospects, Perry earned his union papers and began a
six-year stint as a machinist. He then moved to Sydney where he danced a few bit
parts until he received his big break in the musical “42nd Street.”
Perry then received a government grant to form Tap Brothers - a group con
sisting of his old tap buddies. In January 1995, the group, now known as Tap Dogs,
debuted at the Sydney Theatre Festival. The show won Perry two Olivier awards for
choreography and has gained international attention.
“Tap Dogs” garnered praise in London and New York and recently formed a
national company, which tours, and one based in Las Vegas.
The Lincoln show is the second engagement of the national company’s first
tour.
By the way, it is no coincidence that the Aussie-sawy “Tap Dogs” hasn’t hit the
Outback yet. Most of the dancers grew up right here m the old U.S.A., including
Locascio, who was bom in Brooklyn, N Y.
But despite the rather domestic ingredients, “Tap Dogs” bursts with a distinct
Australian flavor
“Tap Dogs” will begin tonight at 8, Saturday at 5 and 9 p.m. and Sunday at 2
p.m. Tickets are $38, $34 and $29. Student tickets are $33, $29 and $24 for the 8
and 9 p.m. shows and $33, $29 and $ 14.50 for the 5 and 2 p.m. shows. For tickets,
call the Lied Box Office at (402) 472-4747.
snow explores lire and times
of Buffalo Bill
Tonight Buffalo Bill rides again,
although this time there will be consid
erably fewer buffalo.
Balladeer and author Bobby
Bridger will perform a one-man show
entitled “Pahaska” at the Prairie Peace
Park, Interstate 80, exit 388
(Crete/Pleasant Dale) tonight for one
performance only.
“Pahaska,” which is an American
Indian term for “long hair,” is the tale
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“Buffalo Bill” *Co*dy* ^eYfoYfhfed
through song and verse by Bridger.
“Pahaska” makes up the third
installment in Bridger’s trilogy, “A
Ballad of the West.” The first two,
“Seekers of the Fleece” and “Lakota,”
also explore themes of life in the
rugged West.
A portion of tonight’s proceeds go
to the Prairie Peace Park, which fea
tures an educational series of exhibits
on 27 acres of prairie dedicated to the
pursuit of peace in the home, commu
nity, state, nation and world.
The show starts at 7 p.m. Tickets
are available at the door for $ 10, $8 for
^6<wiior citizens, $4 for children 12tand t
uncier.*
Wind ensemble opens season
at 7th Street Loft
Lincoln wind ensemble will pre
sent the first concert of its second sea
son this Saturday at the 7th Street Loft,
504 S. Seventh St.
The concert, “Fourteen on the
Floor,” will be conducted by Randall
Snyder, composer-in-residence at the
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
School of Music.
The concert includes “Serenade in
E flat” by Richard Strauss, and
“Dixtour” by Georges Enesco, leading
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to touches of Romanian folk music.
Formed last year to provide classi
cal music for Lincoln residents in a
non-university setting, the Third Chau
Chamber Players features traditional
wind ensembles in a leisurely and con
versational atmosphere.
Every show begins with a 30
minute social period and concludes
with more time to ask questions of the
musicians.
Saturday’s show features refresh
ments provided by the Mill and
Meier’s Cork N Bottle. Admission to
the 8 p.m. show is $5 for students, $ 10
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