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Cheaper (2003)20 minutes DANCERS: ORIGINAL SCORE: Cheaper, a sequel to Sperling's hit solo Cheap, is a fun, bendy duet. It's crammed with rubbery tricks stolen from across genres, including circus acrobatics, side-show contortion acts, techno-pop, hip-hop, toe-tap, yoga, and more. As the dancers' limbs get entangled, Michelle Ferranti's striped costumes aid in the visual confusion of body parts. Chiappetta's music combines groovy rhythms with rackety clanks. "Next we venture into a bawdy physical comedy routine with the acrobatic and witty Cheaper. Sperling and Ashley Sowell, clad in Ferranti's bold pink and purple striped gymnastic tunics, perform a series of rather daring physical feats. They also manage to tie themselves and each other into knots – and these are not the kind of knots into which Balanchine wished to tie his leggy dancers. Sperling is highly experimental here, and tests the limits of the body, bending a leg up as high as it will go, cranking limbs every which way. Quentin Chiappetta's music provides hilarious sound effects for the physical antics – a creaky door, popping, whistling, sirens, plates crashing. Sperling and Sowell also one-up each other. When Sowell performs her 'strong-man,' or should I say, 'strong-woman,' routine – holding her body weight up on her arms, curving her legs up and over her body so that they touch the top of her head – Sperling performs a bit of pointe shoe toe tapping. To say Sowell is strong is an understatement. The piece is witty and fun and rounds out Sperling's movement style." –Vanessa Manko, Dance Insider "A quirky sequel to Sperling's 1999 piece, Cheap. This time, she pairs with Ashley Sowell, generating an urban set of cocky contortions rendered comical by Quentin Chiappetta's score—a tangle of springs, kazoos and noise pollution. Cheaper frolics like the pages of a Dr. Seuss story. Wrapped in Michelle Ferranti's striped grape leotards, Sperling and Sowell squirm together like black belt yoga instructors. Oh, the places they'll go." –Alexa James, Philadelphia City Paper |
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