As I walked into the New York Live Arts, I was not sure of what to expect. I knew that the performance I was about to watch had to do with a folk dance but I was curious to see on how it was going to be presented. As we entered the room, the stage was dark but I could hear foot stomping and I saw shadows. This caught my attention and I knew that the performance was going to be interesting. As the lights came on, the performers kept on with the stomping, thigh slapping and clapping. Not only was the rhythm captivating, but the fact that the six performers on stage were blindfolded intrigued me. They kept an on-going pattern where one person would add a new move to the dance and everybody would then keep repeating it. These few steps that were introduced in the beginning of the performance formed the foundation for the rest of the show. These few steps were repeated over and over throughout the entire show with the exception of some new moves introduced at different times.

In the beginning of the show and in several instances throughout the show, there were long, silent pauses which added to the intensity of the performance. You would have these performers repeating the stomping, clapping, and thigh slapping and then all of a sudden the entire room would get completely silent and the performers would just stare at each other. This grabbed my attention because it kept me wanting to know what as going to happen next. Something else that grabbed my attention and left me thinking was when one of the performers was talking to the audience and said that anybody could leave at any time, including the performers, but the catch was that they could not enter back inside. This mean that the performance would keep going on until there was no more performers on stage and nobody left in the audience. At first, I found this humorous but then it made me think about how the performers would accomplish this. I have never been to a show where the performers leave the stage out of nowhere and never come back.

The first performer to leave was Mr. Sciarroni and after him, one by one, all the performers ended up leaving as well. The exit of the performers was quite humorous because they would just walk off stage without any worries or care that they were leaving while the performance was still going on. The rest of the performers would just keep on with the show and not really acknowledge the performer that was leaving. There were a few instances of humor throughout the show and this helped to keep the audience interested and amazed at how these performers could keep on with doing this dance over and over. The sweat could be seen and the stamina that these performers had was just amazing. They would never miss a beat or step and even if they were doing it again and again, each step and beat that they hit was just as intense and meaningful as the rest. The performers had a variety of expressions and interactions with one another throughout the performance and it was interesting to see how through these interactions and different expressions, the atmosphere of the room changed from one moment to the next. I sensed moments of seriousness, humor and everything in between throughout the course of the show.

The highlight of the show for me was the ending because I found it humorous and I thought that the choice of the song “Say something” was clever. The way that the remaining two performers were able to keep the repeating steps of this folk dance and make it flow with this song, was incredible. The beats and rhythm worked perfectly and I thought it was very well done. Overall, this performance, “Folk-s, will you still love me tomorrow?”, was quite amazing and I enjoyed seeing the energy that the performers carried throughout the room for almost two hours.

– Karla Collaguazo