Rock of Ages

1990

The People

Choreography: Karen Jamieson

Performers: Virginia Corcoran, Allan Dobbs, Kay Huang, Catherine Lubinsky, Hiromoto Ida, and Andrew Olewine

Set Design: Larry Cohen

Construction Design and Coordination: David Clark, B.C. Event Management

Set Construction: Camel Productions

Physics Text: Dave Chorley and Jeff Corness

Translations and Readings: Pam Howard-Jones (French), Andreas Kahre (German), Harnek Sidhu and Kewal Ram (Sanskrit, Punjabi), Omar Al-khafaji (Arabic), Dwight McFee*

Chorus Vocalists: Andrew Olewine, Jeff Corness, and cast

Solo Vocalists: Marcus Mosely*

Saxophones: Dave Chorley

Recording Engineer: Omar Al-khafaji

Costume Construction: Linda Chow

*Courtesy of Canadian Actors Equity Association

Reviews

From a review of performances of three works at the Vancouver Playhouse: The Man Within, Mudwoman Speaks, and Rock of Ages, Wyman writes:

“However, the piece that on Friday drew the most applause…was Rock of Ages – a work that captures both the succour that belief provides and the permission for abandon that religion allows.

Six individuals, elements that bond to a mass, scramble and dangle about a teepee-like structure of massive, lashed pilings. It is a place to which they can always return. When they move ahead, they take it, inch by slow inch, with them.

Like Mudwoman Speaks, this piece can be interpreted as charting the progression of humanity – in this case, from earliest evolution ( a nice, distinctly non-fundamentalist dovetailing, this, with a Babel of scientific gobbledegook in many languages alternating with spiritual-style music and song in Jeff Corness’s wonderful score).

Ultimately, though, what remains in the mind’s eye is the work of the six brave and valiant dancers, making visible before us, from the simplest of movement materials (leaps, wriggles, twists, writhings) concepts like innocence, striving, tenderness and trust.”

- Max Wyman
The Province, February 4, 1990

“Rock of Ages, with its references to biblical epic, looks at the underpinnings of Judaeo-Christian culture. Dancers move a large tower forward across the stage in a painfully slow journey that has no discernible beginning or end. The score plays with fragments of gospel music; and the dancers press the tower forward, or climb on it, or seek shelter in its shadow by turns. Their movements have the air of religious transport, full of cartwheeling arms, and faces turned heavenward.”

- Michael Scott
“Dance an elemental language”
The Vancouver Sun, February 5, 1990

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