Text 
No Comments [ Add Comment ]'Cellular' makes call at Peery's
By KAREN ANNE WEBBSLIDESHOW: Imagine Ballet Theatre rehearse for their upcoming Fall Repertoire
Pop culture -- in this case, the cell phone -- meets the land of the pointe shoe next weekend, when the Imagine Ballet Theatre youth troupe performs at Ogden's Peery's Egyptian Theater.
Artistic director Raymond Van Mason's new "Cellular" breaks new ground by involving the audience both in the performance and in a community service project designed to keep military families connected.
"I had been thinking of doing a piece based on the use of cell phones," says Mason, "when I saw a segment on CNN about a program called Cell Phones for Soldiers. With more than 150,000 of our troops serving abroad, it seemed like a great fit with what we were doing."
Cell Phones for Soldiers was started by a teen brother and sister in Massachusetts.
"My brother Robbie and I were motivated to start Cell Phones for Soldiers when we heard about a young soldier from Massachusetts with a cell phone bill of over $7,000," says co-founder Brittany Bergquist. "His father was on the news telling people about how the cell phone company shut off his phone and was beginning to harass him to pay the rest of his bill.
"Our cousin had just been deployed, so we were really tuned into what was going on. I remember asking my parents, 'Why does he have to worry about paying his cell phone bill when he should be worried about keeping himself safe?' "
An attempt to pay the soldier's bill via a trip to their piggy banks and some community service projects burgeoned into an effort to send cell phones with prepaid minutes to Iraq. Once word of the Bergquists' project got out, people began to send them cell phones intended for soldiers serving abroad.
Unfortunately, the word from the Department of Defense was "no go."
"They explained that cell phone signals can be triangulated and the soldiers using the phones located by hostile forces," explains Bergquist, "so it would be too dangerous to send them."
Working with a group called Recellular, the siblings were able to bank money to buy prepaid phone cards by recycling the cell phones they were receiving.
"Since that day in April of 2004, we have collected over 1.5 million cell phones and have raised almost $3 million," Bergquist says. "We send prepaid phone cards to troops serving throughout the world and have sent over 500,000 so far. That's 30 million minutes of talk time."
IBT is inviting audience members to bring in cell phones to be recycled through this program. The company is offering a $2 discount on tickets for audience members who contribute to the cause.
Dial in for dancing
In addition, "Cellular," which opens the bill of the fall repertory program, cannot start without audience participation.
"I've invited several of our dancers to create little solos to open the piece," says Mason. "The trick is that each dancer will have a cell phone sitting onstage and will not start to dance till her particular phone rings."
This will represent some added incentive for the audience to read the program notes: The cell phone numbers will be listed in the program, and audience members dialing in will actually initiate the piece.
A military family
Sixteen-year-old company member Macall Bowden can relate to the subject of keeping in contact with family members in the military: Her father is serving in the National Guard in Afghanistan.
"He was sent overseas when I was in fifth grade," she recalls. "It was hard then, but we thought that would be the last time. It is heartbreaking to go through this again.
"We keep in contact by e-mail. Calls take some setting up because they need to be routed so groups like the Taliban can't trace where the call is from. On caller ID, they'll show up as being from someplace like Hawaii because they've been rerouted so many times."
Bowden, the second of four siblings, says that, in some ways, her father's call to duty abroad has brought the family closer together.
"I feel especially close to my mom now, and it really teaches you not to take a parent for granted. In terms of my dancing, I think the challenges have helped because now, if I have a sad part to play, I have this experience to draw on.
"And dancing is a great way to channel the negative energy. If I'm angry, I can dance it out. IBT is a great experience, and dancing keeps me out of trouble."
She calls "Cellular" a "workout," saying the dancers -- it's a full-company piece -- work at full energy the entire time.
"My solo looks a little like hip-hop, since that's not something we've done onstage before. I'm a little nervous about whether the audience will get the idea and call the onstage cell phones, but I have confidence in Ray -- he'll find a way to make it work."
Other new pieces on the bill include Mason's contemporary works "Piazolla Tango," "Waltz All Night,"and "Apologize."
"Tchaikovsky Variations" includes a variety of variations from the great Tchaikovsky ballets, and a reprise of the ensemble work "Pillow Party" features the songs of Doris Day.
PREVIEW
l WHO: Imagine Ballet Theatre youth ballet
l WHAT: Fall repertory program
l WHEN: 7:30 p.m. next Friday and 8 p.m. Nov. 8
l WHERE: Peery's Egyptian Theater, 2415 Washington Blvd., Ogden
l TICKETS: $10, at the box office, 395-3227, or at www.peerysegyptiantheater.com. $2 discount for contribution of a cell phone.
l EXTRAS: Gala dinner on Nov. 8 at the theater; $85 ticket includes a silent auction at 5:30 p.m., dinner at 6:45 p.m., the program at 8 p.m., and dessert and dancing at 9:30 p.m. The program and dessert and dancing, $25. Information, 721-2731.
Add Your Comment
