Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Fringe Benefit: UNLV hosts miniature version of Edinburgh arts festival

In Kari Margolis' "The Human Show," a dozen people dressed for a party find themselves in a place where there's no host, no windows and no doors.

In a series of abstract and literal vignettes, their caricatured behaviors morph from the assertive to the mocking, to the confused, scared, sad, vengeful, lustful, rejoiceful and absurd.

Little emotion is left out of this humorous and colorful production created between Margolis, of the Minneapolis-based Margolis Brown Performance Company, and University of Nevada, Las Vegas dance and theater students.

It was created for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the world's largest arts festival, held last month in Edinburgh, Scotland.

After three weeks of performing in Edinburgh, students will present the production this week at UNLV's Black Box Theatre as part of the university's Edinburgh Mini-Fringe Festival.

"It's a bizarre sociological study of human behavior," said Margolis in July when she was in Las Vegas working with the students.

"Twelve people find themselves invited to the same event. But they don't know who invited them, why they are invited or what it is. So the space they end up in is kind of this abstract space. No windows, no entrances, no exits, no host.

"It all unfolds. And what unfolds is our life."

This is Margolis' first collaboration with UNLV. She was brought to incorporate students from the dance and theater departments for the Edinburgh festival.

This week's Mini-Fringe will also include other Edinburgh productions: Louis Kavouras' "Joe ... This Infinite Universe ," UNLV "Filmmaker Showcase" and Margot Mink Colbert's "Chaconnes and Other Dances."

"We're very excited to be back and show off what we've been doing for the past month," Kavouras, chair of UNLV's dance department, said. "We're pretty energized from the experience. The students saw tons of work, very innovative performances."

Artistic freedom

With 20,000 performances and 1,600 shows, Edinburgh is flooded with artists from all over the world who perform in clubs, auditoriums, classrooms, closets, pubs and spare rooms.

It was created in 1947 by artists as an addition to the Edinburgh International Festival, which focuses on more conventional productions.

Participants network, attend workshops and other shows, and entertain in the streets to attract audiences to their performances. With so many performers in town, the competition for audiences is tough.

"It's one of the most difficult places to play," Kavouras said. "The Fringe guide is thick. You're just this little blurb on the page.

"Someone would take the backroom of a studio, a closet. There have been shows in the backseat of a car ... After a while you sort of get on the map and it's good for the students. But you have to bring work that you're committed to."

And, Kavouras added, for students who don't live in a city rich in cultural events, the experience is immeasurable.

"It completely changes these students," he said. "As an artist, rarely do you get the chance to go to a city that is overtaken by artists.

"The students I take over I find are completely different when they come back, aesthetically. They get much more daring and bold in what they like, in what they do. They're now trying to explore something brand new, something different."

The festival also gives students an opportunity to present something unique.

Using only lights, music and folding chairs, scenes in "The Human Show" transform from the solemn and introspective to the outlandish and entertaining. At one point cast members fight for a chair placed center stage that has no special qualities, aside from the fact that everybody wants it.

Fluidly and aggressively characters struggle to sit in the chair. They push each other off. They deceive one another, pile atop each other and acrobatically outmaneuver one another.

When one man finally lands on the chair, the group barrages him with hisses and catcalls. Eventually everyone is bouncing on their own chairs and cackling wildly, until they pair off as arm- wrestlers under bright lights with four obnoxious fans cheering them on.

The arm-wrestling turns into freestyle wrestling, then to a dance contest in its 72nd hour.

Joe's world

In "Joe ... This Infinite Universe," a piece that explores life's biggest questions, Kavouras, who has now been to Festival Fringe four times, performs with actor and UNLV instructor Michael Lugering.

This is Kavouras' third show featuring his "everyman" character, "Joe."

The multimedia production incorporates film, video and music. Kavouras's character takes a spiritual approach through dance to understand life. Lugering, dressed in a lab coat, reads pages of academic text in a scientific and intellectual search.

"It is 10 ways of looking at the universe, looking at reality, looking at life," Kavouras said. "It's a beautiful search. It tries to make sense of who we are and why we are in the space and time of the expanding universe. It's very existential. It's who we are and how we react to this universe.

"I call it a one-man show, but two men are in it. They are two Joes and they add up to one universe of Joe."

The theme of "Joe" happened, by chance, to coincide with the context of "The Human Show."

"They both sort of get out what it means to be human in this time and space," Kavouras said.

Film and dance

Eight UNLV film students attended the festival and screened 10 digital shorts, then participated in a 48-hour film challenge, in which they created a film in 48 hours.

The film they were assigned to create was a science-fiction, fantasy-horror project titled "Hip's A Problem," and it will be shown at this week's Mini-Fringe.

Other projects (mostly digital shorts) to be screened this week include "Jar of Grasshoppers," "Love Potion No. 6," "Thor at the Bus Stop," "The Search for the Troll King" and "Bug Hunt."

Margot Mink Colbert's "Chaconnes and Other Dances" will showcase violinist Byron Tauchi playing a Bach chaconne for solo violin.

Colbert, a dancer, choreographer and UNLV associate dance professor, has brought her original works to Edinburgh several times.

She will perform works with dancer Tamara Lohrenz and UNLV dance students at this week's Mini-Fringe.

Teaming with Margolis

For "The Human Show," Kavouras said this is the first time the dance department brought in someone from the outside to work with students for the annual trek to Edinburgh.

Margolis and Tony Brown founded the Margolis Brown Performance Company in New York City in 1983, then later moved it to Minneapolis. Their multimedia productions are based heavily on connecting physical and vocal elements.

Margolis said "The Human Show" was an opportunity for her to work with actors in a small-scale production that can be set up in 10 minutes.

"In general, our work is very technically complex and doesn't tour easily to these festivals," Margolis said. "The last piece I wrote had 40 artists, choral singers, puppeteers, major multimedia. I was hungry after that to explore what you can do with actors in a space."

Margolis conceptualized the production. The students created the specifics within the structure she provided them.

Performing at Edinburgh, Margolis said, "It's huge. For these students, it's probably one of the major events in their life."

UNLV dance student Kristen Scholes had never performed overseas. Nor had she participated in a production as unconventional as "The Human Show."

"Anything like this," Scholes said. "It's the most incredible thing to perform."

Neither Scholes nor UNLV theater student Ben Campbell knew what they were in for when they signed on.

Despite the extensive physical workout in the 50-minute production, Campbell said, "It feels that to perform it takes 10 minutes. Everything flows from one thing to the next.

"One top of that, working with Kari is amazing."

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