STOMP Theater

This evening I went to the spectacular STOMP theator show at the The Vaudeville Theatre, very close to the hotel.

From their website:

What does the word STOMP make you think of?

Music, Dance, Theatre, Choreography or Performance Art? All of the above! Or is it none of the above. Well, both are sort of right...In a way. Confused? read on...

STOMP is a movement, of bodies, objects, sounds - even abstract ideas. But what makes it so appealing is that the cast uses everyday objects, but in non-traditional ways.

There's no speech, no dialogue, not even a plot.

So why go see STOMP? Well, have you ever composed a symphony using only matchbooks as instruments? Or created a dance routine based around sweeping? You may have done this a little, but get a group of rhythmically gifted, extremely coordinated bodies with definitive personalities, and you have the makings for STOMP.

STOMP started stomping on the streets of Brighton, England. Luke Cresswell and Steve McNicholas the creators of STOMP were a group of street performers commonly know as "buskers" trying to grab people's attention.

And attention is what they received

Busking is an old custom in the UK, dating back to booth theatres erected at village fairs in the Middle Ages. Luke and Steve updated this historical custom and created a modern symbiotic marriage between movement and music.

You're mistaken if you look for a hidden message in STOMP. There are no political connotations, no pretentious techniques, and no dialogue to misconstrue. Instead, you're bombarded by noises that you usually try to block out. STOMP takes the everyday sounds of pipes and brooms, lighters and garbage pail lids, and creates the extraordinary.

So how do you describe STOMP? If you ask one of the creators, Luke Cresswell, he would simply say, "at the end of the day, STOMP is what it is."