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Seatle Times April, 2003 - IMAX is perfect for rhythmic, uplifting Stomp travelogue By Brangien Davis Though devoid of spoken words, Pulse: a STOMP Odyssey speaks volumes. The creators of the Broadway smash hit STOMP now offer beat buffs a spectacular film exploration of global cadence, billed as "a tribute to world of rhythm that has inspired us." Opening on the fire escape of what is surely the loudest apartment building in New York City, the STOMP performers reveal how cultures tend to make music with whatever is handy — in this case a cardboard box, a basketball, a water jug and thundering feet. But before we can say "noise ordinance," we're whisked off to Africa, Japan, Spain, India and Brazil, each time touching down in a riot of rhythm and color. Our global tour guide is Keith "Wild Child" Middleton, a hip-hop artist who has performed with STOMP worldwide over the past seven years. Employing only human-beat-box sounds and the occasional raise of an eyebrow, Middleton connects the segments but lets the music speak for itself. A flamenco dancer stamps out a seductive song on a rooftop in Granada, Spain. A group of bushmen sing, drum and clap in the Kalahari Desert. Horns blare and cymbals crash in the streets of Kerala, India. Mining-clothed dancers tromp in gum-soled boots amid industrial Johannesburg, South Africa. Urban marching drum corps strut their stuff across the Brooklyn Bridge. And the beat goes on. The large-screen format is perfect for the scenic vistas in which these performances take place. The grassy plains of Botswana, the towering formations of Red Rock Canyon, the bustling crowds of Calcutta and the skyscrapers of New York City all seem to envelop the audience, inviting us to join this rich pageant. This is not a documentary — these are not spontaneous performances. The traditional costumes are in some cases unusually modest (except, perhaps, for the Sumo-styled thongs of the Kodo drummers from Japan) and precisely rendered. The performers are exactly that — formally established groups who make it their business to preserve and share the rhythmic traditions of their cultures. The carefully staged nature of the segments, however, takes nothing away from their beauty and power. Especially successful is a sequence involving large-screen portrait shots of several of the featured performers, each of whom utters a traditional sound from their culture — the eagle-squawks of American Indians, the ululation and click-singing of South Africans, the staccato grunts of Japanese drummers. These are cut together to form a truly global rhythmic song that puts "We Are the World" to shame. It's this universality that comes through loud and clear. No matter how different the methods of music-making -- how diverse the settings or costumes -- they all seem to echo each other in important, uniting ways. It's a hopeful film, one that offers a glimpse of how harmonious our planet might be, if we stopped talking for a minute and just started listening. Back to Reviews |
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