La Palomba / Ascending Boston Globe Review
A moving, and ultimately uplifting, ‘La Palomba/Ascending’
The multimedia dance production by Island Moving Company in Newport, R.I., will be performed Oct. 15 and 16
NEWPORT, R.I. — Some of us have never forgotten the image of people falling out of the Twin Towers on 9/11. And even more of us have imagined, over and over, what it was like for the people trapped inside the buildings.
Remembering what we saw, envisioning what they saw, embodying the dreams of survivors — all of that and much more comes forth in the beautiful and incredibly moving multimedia dance work, “La Palomba/Ascending,” presented by Island Moving Company, Newport, Oct. 15 and 16. The piece was conceived and choreographed by Artistic Director Miki Ohlsen and Associate Artistic Director Danielle Genest, in collaboration with Simona De Tullio, of Breathing Art Company, in Bari, Italy, with whom IMC has worked for the past four years.
Island Moving Company is known for its outdoor performances, including the lawns of the Newport mansions as well as the tunnels inside Fort Adams. So a visit to La Palomba Sculpture Park, created inside an abandoned quarry, with some pieces of the 9/11 rubble by Antonio Paradiso, spurred Ohlsen and her team to set a dance piece there (presented in September) and then to bring it home to Newport, on an outdoor stage at the Great Friends Meeting House.
“La Palomba” has eight scenes, with evocative titles and epigraphs, starting with “Unforeseen,” continuing through “Frantic Search” and “Collective Sorrow,” and ending with “Souls Transcending.” But it is neither a close narrative nor a strictly religious synthesis of its themes.
