REVIEW: Heterollectual @ Ottawa Fringe 2012

Heterollectual: Love and Other Dumb Ideas is a dance investigation of love, lust, and relationships. Should you see it?

Heterollectual is a dance show by Pollux Dance. As its subtitle, “Love, and Other Dumb Ideas”, suggests, It focuses on the theme of love, lust, emotion, and how messy and ridiculous it can get at times. It centers on six young adults who interact with each other and fall in and out of love. In between the dance numbers are sound bites from some interviewees on the subject.

The show is really enjoyable, but I have to admit that it takes quite a while to get in to it. The first part of the show isn’t quite as engaging, as it seemed like they were just falling down randomly. Heterollectual really shines when it gets away from that in the middle scenes, and the choreography and dance moves really explode. Everyone in the troupe gets a moment to shine and show their stuff, and I found it hard not to be impressed by the end of it.

I also appreciate some moments when they mix it up with humour, including a scene with a headless mannequin and another scene where the 4^th wall is broken. Even the moments when they act out small scenes are surprisingly raw and natural. These moments break up the pace so that it doesn’t get monotonous. Heterollectual is a bit slow on the warm up, but you should give it a chance. It will impress you. I give it a three.

Allan’s Followup:

Repeating what I mentioned in the A Macsummer Night’s Dream review — I see a lot of dance - 2,000+ number through Apr-Jun every year - doing videography for competitions and recitals. I also get to listen to the judges a lot at competition. So while I’m not a dancer, I love dance and have at least some basis to review on. And from even before day one of Fringe, I knew this was a show I wanted to see.

There were two things that didn’t to it for me in the show. First, the first fifteen minutes were uninspired and resultingly boring. There was very little that showed any choreography or skill and it felt a bit like an improvised movement class in its randomness. Second, the narrative never really narrated for me. Where a couple numbers in Aerial Allusions had clear narrative intent, and A Macsummer Night’s dream told a complete story, and the movement pieces in White Noise were emotionally moving, I didn’t really feel any narrative sense through Heterollectual - there was no journey.

BUT — and it’s a bit but — after those first fifteen, minutes, Pollux Dance shows that they can dance. And how. There were a lot of really amazing routines there and I really, really enjoyed watching the dancers show off how skilled they are. I believe this is the first show Leslie-Ann Glen and Pollux Dance has put together, and I would look forward to seeing another down the road.

- by Allan Mackey

About Kurt Shantz

Kurt Shantz is a Theatre and Scriptwriting graduate and an occasional Should You See It reviewer. He currently works as a warehouse clerk, but has big aspirations of someday achieving his dream of becoming a senior warehouse clerk. He's also been known to write on occasion.

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