Squonk at Tech Arts Festival
The Michigan Tech Memorial Union Board presents Squonk as the main event
for this year's Tech Arts Festival. Squonk! It's fun to say and even funnier
to watch, but what is it? Squonk is an amazing company of extraordinarily
inventive, entertaining, and multi-talented people appearing on the Rozsa
stage on Saturday, April 20, at 8:00 p.m. A Squonk performance is "…the
most fun theatrical nonsense you'll ever see-a positive celebration of
silliness … a musical frolic that's meant to confront and shake up
the senses (New York Times)." Tickets are available at the Rozsa
Center Box Office at 487-3200 (Monday-Friday, 11:30 a.m.-5:00 p.m.) or
online at www.tickets.mtu.edu. Using original music, humor, startling visual effects, dance, puppetry,
and mime, Squonk creates an extraordinary variety of myths and moods.
Monsters, machines, even a mechanical horse, stalk the stage conjuring
up images that are by turns, beautiful and wacky, humorous and strange,
but always wondrously creative. Squonk gives us accessible performance art, NOT the kind that is so off-the-wall
that it's incomprehensible, but music, dance, theater, much humor, and
weird, wonderful and extraordinary props that the Monty Python crew would
covet. Their puppetry is not like any traditional puppetry you may have
seen. One spectacular puppet is a giant head divided into four, with a
large mouth and a huge tongue that leaps out, sweeping objects in its
path out of the way. The music, performed by the cast and sung by the ethereal Jana Losey,
is a rich brew of Irish techno-folk and Indian melodies, laced with strong
dashes of Philip Glass, heavy metal, and industrial noise. Assorted forms
of percussion and wind instruments are used along with a double bass,
keyboards, and an accordion. The Washington Post describes their music
as "Debussy meets Godzilla" and the Chicago Reader finds …
"traces of Laurie Anderson, Kurt Weill, Debussy, Ravi Shankar, medieval
chant and rap." There's a fair amount of singing, but it's not anything
that Mozart or Rogers and Hammerstein would recognize. Squonk's visit to the Rozsa is presented by the MTU Memorial Union Board
for Tech Arts Festival and is funded by student activity fees, the MTU
Committee for Campus Enrichment, and the James and Margaret Black Endowment.
For further information contact the University Cultural Enrichment Department
(487-2844). 04/15/02
Proudly wearing the laurels of very successful, critically-acclaimed runs
on Broadway at the Helen Hayes Theatre AND Off-Broadway, Squonk returns
to Houghton with the Broadway production. They're also the proud winners
of the highly prestigious American Theatre Wing Design Award 2000 for
Outstanding Unusual Effects, one of the hallmarks of their performance.
