This post contains affiliate links and our team will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on the links.
The international sensation STOMP is making its triumphant return to the Orange County Performing Arts Center. If you haven’t heard (and with its noise…how could you not?), STOMP features 8 performers who make rhythm out of anything they can get their hands on that makes a sound. Stiff-bristle brooms become a sweeping orchestra; Zippo lighters flip open and close to create a fiery fugue; wooden poles thump in rhythm; basically anything is used except conventional percussion instruments.
Co-creator Steve McNicholas says “STOMP has evolved a great deal since its first incarnation at the Edinburgh Festival. Every reworking has involved losing some pieces and gaining new ones, but has always stayed true to the original premise of the show: to create rhythmic music with instantly recognizable objects, and do it with humor. An eccentric sense of character and humor.”
The return of this percussion hit brought some new surprises to the OC Performing Arts Center. Key additions to this version include the routine “Paint Cans,” which had cans juggled in the air, and “Donuts,” a funny routine featuring giant tractor tire inner tubes worn around the performer’s waist. The choreographers for STOMP give the eight-member cast a framework to work around, but allow for around 25% to be improvised, so every show is unique. In our show, one of the performers tried to get the various sections of the audience to clap to a different rhythm and had fun teasing a specific section that struggled to keep up.
Overall, the evening proved STOMP is a smashing invention of sight & sound!
STOMP is at the Orange County Performing Arts Center from January 6 – 11, 2009.
