Violinist Duncan Wickel sometimes began with a soulful melody that tightened into a reel or a hornpipe or a bluegrass fiddle tune. In his solos he took off into unimaginable cascades of sound and song. With bowing, plucking, rubbing, and tickling, he could turn the violin into a whole orchestra.
The format for Celtic Tap was that of a simple revue — nothing fancy to detract from what these virtuosos could do. Beginning with a tune or a rhythm, one of them would open out into an extended solo, or engage one of his companions in a challenge. Call-and-response must be one of the oldest forms of show-off dancing, and Devine, Jennings, and Wickel were experts at picking up on one another’s ideas and adding new complexities to throw back. Devine also paid tribute to dance history with his adaptations of a broom dance and a sand dance.
I thought a lot of this program was rehearsed, and I missed the extra excitement, the surprise of discovery, that comes with improvised rhythm dance. In the last few numbers, when Devine summoned up his most imaginative material, the territory seemed more uncharted. But it could be they were so in tune with each other’s instincts that they were making it up all along.
Related:
Game show, Smoke and mirrors (and elephants) at the ICA, Slideshow: Chunky Move at ICA, More 
- Game show
On November 12, the Institute of Contemporary Art opened its biennial Foster Prize exhibit of “Boston-area artists of exceptional promise.”
- Smoke and mirrors (and elephants) at the ICA
Not into wheatpasting and framed posters? The ICA is about to serve up two shows by artists who promise not to pop up on street walls all over the city.
- Slideshow: Chunky Move at ICA
The Australian troupe Chunky Move performed its 2004 work I Want to Dance Better at Parties at Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art from March 27 to 29.
- Video vérité
Javier Téllez's 2007 black-and-white film "Letter on the Blind, For the Use of Those Who See" starts with a catchy premise: he gathered six blind New Yorkers at an empty public pool in Brooklyn to act out the fable of the blind men and the elephant.
- Slideshow: Experiment dance night at ICA
DJs Pase Rock, XXXchange, and Ghostdad spin beats at the ICA's Experiment: Fully Fitted dance night on April 3.
- States of the art
In New England, where you can't swing a sack of cranberries without hitting a venerable cultural institution, anyone with access to a car (or even a subway pass) can scope out these topnotch art museums.
- Summer people
Ever wonder why there is so much professional-level art made and shown in Maine, a state with a total population less than that of many minor cities? One answer is that following the fame of people like Winslow Homer, creative types flocked to Maine, often to artists' colonies.
- Photos: Shepard Fairey, Z-Trip, Chuck D at the ICA
Shepard Fairey spins at Obey Experiment REDUX at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston
- Photos: Black Moth Super Rainbow at ICA
Photos of Black Moth Super Rainbow's performance at the ICA
- Topographic musings
"Aggregate" is Maine College of Art's second themed Alumni Biennial at the Institute of Contemporary Art, showing work chosen by a jury from among recent work by BFA and MFA graduates. While the artists represent a range of mediums, graduating class ('97 to '08), and experience, the integrity of the selected works is consistently impressive.
- A cut above
From out of blearily luminous pools of spiraling orange fractals, the disembodied head of a stately-looking man emerged, coaxing us to attention with little more than his calming gaze and an invitation to “a new beginning.”
- Less
Topics:
Dance
, Entertainment, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Michael Flatley, More
, Entertainment, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Michael Flatley, Paul Jennings, Robert Wierzel, Culture and Lifestyle, History, World History, Dance, Performing Arts, Less
