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Stompin’ all over the world:
Luke Cresswell brings the beat to the screen
BY IRIS FANGER

In Stomp think, the notion of one-world harmony is as ubiquitous as the heartbeat, embellished by the sounds of drums and stamping feet. Now a multinational enterprise by virtue of its traveling troupes, television commercials, and almost universal recognition, the Stomp team has taken to the big screen to prove its point.

Pulse: A Stomp Odyssey is currently spread across the large — and I mean large, overhead, surround-sound — screen in the Museum of Science’s Mugar Omni Theater, where it illustrates the connecting thread of rhythm. Stomp creators Luke Cresswell and Steve McNichols trekked the globe to find performing troupes to combine in this visual and auditory thrill ride of a documentary. Anchored by seven-year veteran of the New York Stomp troupe Keith Middleton and augmented by a cast of thousands, the film juxtaposes the similarities of the beat throughout disparate cultures.

Although he still calls the English seaside resort Brighton home, Cresswell is usually on the road, keeping watch over the Stomp companies in Los Angeles, New York, London, and Boston (where Stomp’s Stuart Street Playhouse engagement has just been extended to " indefinite " ). " Pulse was an idea we had long ago that we thought would make a good documentary film. We wanted to go around the world and pay homage to a lot of things that had influenced us. Stomp’s success allowed us to do it. "

A high-school dropout at age 15, Cresswell was a drummer who graduates from punk bands to street performances when he and musician/actor McNichols teamed up in 1990 to create Stomp. The following year they took it to the Edinburgh Festival. " I see myself as more music than dance. Now I see myself as music, theater, and film. I enjoy watching dance, working with dancers. I’d never consider myself a dancer; no one else would either. " He says this with a laugh, despite the potent mix of percussion and movement that he and McNichols devised for the Stomp experience.

The 40-minute film begins on a skyscraper rooftop in Manhattan, where Middleton stands alone, swinging a lariat-type instrument to create the sound of the wind. The image is caught from above, as if the camera had been mounted on a helicopter, with the peaks and valleys of the various buildings forming a gasp-inducing backdrop. The sites on five continents are used as décor to stunning effect: Red Rock Canyon in Nevada, where the American Indian Dance Theatre re-creates tribal dances; the Brooklyn Bridge as a stage for the Jackie Robinson Steppers and the Jersey Surf Drum and Bugle Corps, a marching band of high-school kids who whirl their instruments in an extravagant choreography of dips and bends; Sado, the mysterious island in Japan where the Kodo drummers are based. And that’s not to mention the giraffes of the African veldt, which seem to be listening to the native companies shown in performance, or the dozen elephants that, dressed in their red beaded headdresses, stand in silent attention behind the Chenda drums and brass horns and cymbals of a ritual ceremony in Kerala, India.

Cresswell and McNichols finished their first feature film last year; Vacuums, Creswell explains, is " about two factories that make vacuum cleaners at war with each other. The cast is a mixture of Stomp-ers and actors. We tried to weave them in and out so you really can’t detect who is who. The film’s release date will depend on its reception at the film festivals.

" Stomp has stayed popular because rhythm is the universal language, as the film demonstrates. It’s inside all of us, trying to get out. If you examine Stomp point by point, there’s a lot of things in it you’ve seen before. It’s the combination that makes the show different, and the passion of the performers that keeps it going. "

Pulse: A Stomp Odyssey is playing in the Mugar Omni Theater at the Museum of Science, in Science Park. Tickets are $8, or $7 for seniors and $6 for children ages three through 11; call (617) 723-2500, or visit www.mos.org. Stomp continues at the Stuart Street Playhouse Tuesdays through Sundays, and tickets are $45 to $55; call (800) 447-7400.

Issue Date: April 3 - 10, 2003

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