Reed Luplau Works in ‘How Will I Bear in mind This’

Tweet

It was a cold and rainy night when I attended, and I wasn’t sure how many people would be in the audience, given the weather and the location (there are very few concert dance performances on this part of the island, although the very close proximity to this writer’s apartment was downright thrilling). But as I pulled open the nondescript door, I quickly realized I might be in for something special. One of my favorite parts about NYC is that you never really know what’s behind a door – there could be a magically curated world inside, one that lets you visit a place of art and curiosity, just by taking a one step over a threshold. Fortunately for me and the rest of the fully packed house, this was one of those occasions.

How Will I Remember This asks that fundamental question…how will each of us look back on the parts of our lives, but also how will history be remembered, or, as it often is, not. Memory constantly dances between fragility, power, time and circumstance, and this production from Reed Luplau Works shares the amalgamation of those forces. The show opened with a video projection resembling the opening credits of a film, setting the tone in a cinematic manner. With a background in Broadway, Luplau knows how to create a mise en scène – in this case, covering the walls of the set with newspapers…which are often the way in which we remember history (or rather the history that someone chose to write down), and almost never the full story.

Reed Luplau Works in ‘How Will I Remember This.’ Photo by Benjamin Rivera.

Luplau uses the story of the Eldorado nightclubs in 1920s Germany as inspiration. Known to accept LGBTQ people during the time, the clubs let people be as they wanted until they were shuttered in 1933 by Hitler. This production traces the story of a man reconstructing a time in his life, and the ways in which we come to understand the past in flashes, in emotions that don’t have words, and under the influence of external power. The result reveals the heartbreaking messiness of time, and our inherent human submission to it.

The cast of dancers all had their own look and way of moving, but like the immaculate genre blending of the choreography, fit together effortlessly. It’s no easy task to use so many style influences and make them work together as a cohesive production. In this production, we were treated to the success of that effort. Carrying the show throughout was live and original music by Javier Dunn and Andrew Mayer. The performance had no intermission and when the lights came up and I realized it was over, I wished it was just intermission, because I could have watched a second half with great delight and contemplation.

By Emily Sarkissian of Dance Informa.

Andrew Mayer, Broadway, Choreographer, choreographers, choreography, dance review, dance reviews, IAMT Theater, Institute for Musical Theatre, Javier Dunn, musical theater, online dance review, online dance reviews, Reed Luplau, Reed Luplau Works, review, Reviews, The Institute for Musical Theatre