Kitchen Sink Fest and One-Minute Play Festival
Two D.C. festivals, at Dance Place and Round House, offer lineups of super-short pieces
“It’s a mega-collaborative, one-minute dance extravaganza featuring a really great representation of the D.C. dance community as a whole,” says Ben Levine. That, in a nutshell, is the concept for Levine’s upcoming dance production, Kitchen Sink Fest.
Wary of people complaining about the length of certain works (“I got the idea in the first minute” is something Levine hears often), he’ll present a series of hyper-short pieces in quick succession with the aim of keeping audiences engaged as they’re bombarded with creativity and originality.
The technical director at Dance Place, Levine has collaborated with 22 of D.C.’s “most daring” choreographers to present 50 movement-oriented works, each just a minute in length. There’s contributions from “everybody and their mom whose work I value in the dance community here,” says Levine, including Adrienne Clancy, Erica Rebollar and Annie Choudhury.
Dance Place isn’t alone in offering brief encounters next weekend. Dom D’Andrea started One-Minute Play Festival nearly a decade ago in New York, and it’s now in its third year at Round House. Much like Kitchen Sink, it was created as a way to alter how people interacted with the medium — in this case, theater. “It was about us getting together as a community and challenging people to just do a little bit of something different,” D’Andrea says. The plays focus on works from over 40 women playwrights and directors, including Allyson Currin, Renee Calarco, Jennifer Mendenhall, Jennifer Nelson and Hope Villanueva. D’Andrea hopes that what the plays lack in length, they make up for in power and resonance.
“The primary reason why we exist is to create a space for dialog, exchange of ideas and action,” he says. “Our minute-long plays are about building up, it’s not about cramming a bunch of stuff in. It’s not a time race, it’s not a novelty. It’s about creating equity of voice, giving 40 people equal space and equal time to say something.”
The 3rd Annual One-Minute Play Festival is Saturday, July 30, at 8 p.m., and Sunday, July 31, at 3 and 8 p.m., at Round House Theatre, 4545 East-West Highway, Bethesda. Tickets are $20. Call 240-644-1100 or visit roundhousetheatre.org.
Kitchen Sink Fest is Saturday, July 30, at 8 p.m., and Sunday, July 31, at 7 p.m., at Dance Place, 3225 8th St. NE. Tickets are $25 in advance, or $30 at the door. Call 202-269-1600 or visit danceplace.org.
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