Who's Hungry -
West Hollywood
Feature Articles:
Williston Observer, Burlington VT, September 2008
Review:
?ÄúThe epiphany hit me during the second piece, ?ÄúEight Days Without a Dog,?Äù prompted by a pair of binoculars. This small, cheap plastic object became, when topped with a mop of curling ribbon and passed through the hands of four very talented young puppeteers, a woman who spends her days cycling between soup kitchens and welfare offices, who?Äôs known her share of struggle but is determined to maintain an upbeat attitude, her spirits buoyed daily by the companionship of a beloved dog (actually nothing more than a mesh sponge). But when, in a grievous turn of events, this dog goes missing, she spends eight days pounding the pavement, proliferating ?ÄúMissing?Äù signs, asking everyone she sees for clues, and drifting ever closer to the abyss as she is forced to contemplate a life stripped not only of material comforts but of its most basic emotional foundation as well: the capacity to love and feel connected to another living being. All this, mind you, without a word of dialogue.?Äù
Holly Myers
LA Weekly
July 16, 2008
Live Sax Acts
preview:
New York Times preview for "Live Sax Acts" at Symphony Space, April 2008
review:
?ÄúBrilliant, Chaplinesque physical timing and fast-talking drollery that perfectly evokes the bonds and barriers between men.?Äù
"[Wolf is] an often disturbing enactment of the current culture of surveillance and insecurity.?Äù
Roslyn Sulcas
The New York Times
April 5, 2008
?ÄúImpish, erudite, sensitive, and sidesplittingly funny, Dan Froot is much more than just a dancer-choreographer. He began as a jazz saxophonist-composer and has created award-winning experimental theatre works that combine music, movement, and text into brainy, laugh-a-minute explorations of profound personal issues.?Äù
Lisa Jo Sagolla
Backstage
April 12, 2005
?ÄúShlammer is a rich strudel layering issues of Jewish identity in America, male violence, and coming-of-age. The array of jokes and lightening shifts of character and tone are brilliant.?Äù
Deborah Jowitt
The Village Voice
April 6, 2005
?ÄúWhat makes Shlammer so theatrically satisfying is the way Mr. Froot turns sociological and psychological theories into entertainment that's simultaneously rollicking and stimulating.?Äù
Jack Anderson
The New York Times
April 2, 2005
?ÄúDan Froot's Shlammer is: (a) A bar mitzvah disguised as performance art; (b) An exercise in Brechtian alienation that, strangely, never fails to entertain;(c)An unsettling look at the sadomasochistic comedy that goes by the name of slapstick;(d)A feminist warning against the sins of the fathers becoming the sins of the sons. The answer of course is(e),or all of the above, and much of Shlammer's force comes from its shrewd handling of theatrical and emotional incongruities. The vaudevillian ethos, with its variable moods and addresses to the audience, seems a perfect fit for Froot, whose many talents as an actor, dancer, and jazz saxophonist are exploited over the course of the production. This fit gives extra force to the tensions in the piece: it's clear that while Froot's persona is the soul of anxiety -- mugging, fretful, out-of-joint -- Froot the performer is utterly in his element.?Äù
Scott Saul
Theatre Journal
?ÄúIn Shlammer, Dan Froot danced, sang, juggled, and all-around amazed and delighted audiences with this sly inquiry into what makes a man a man and a performance a performance. It was a hyperanimated tour de force that gave us the truly memorable Jewish gangster turned vaudevillian star ?ÄúDEHdee.?Äù?Äù
Sara Wolf
LA Weekly -
?ÄúBest of the Year?Äù
?Äú[A] brilliantly sustained performance?Äù
Lewis Segal
Los Angeles Times
?ÄúDan Froot is sincere about connecting with his audience.[He] does so by drawing from all the performing [arts].He merges them into rhythmic monologues that are as entertaining as they are engaging. A ?ÄúFroot Alone?Äù experience is a collective one.?Äù
Wendy Liberatore
The Daily Gazette
(Schenectady, NY)
?ÄúMr. Dorfman and Mr. Froot are the ultimate male bondees, and they are gifted performers who know how to celebrate and tease that closeness. Live Sax Acts is essentially a complex, deliciously literate and wicked look at two friends and the larger world that surrounds them.?Äù
Jennifer Dunning
The New York Times
?Äú[Live Sax Acts] explores the twisty byways of masculinity. What give their collaborations grit and poignancy as well as hilarity are the brainy ways they affirm that it's not just a jungle out there; it's a jungle in here...It's not only these artists' wit, terrific performing, and loony imagination that delight us, but their transparency and depth and basic sweetness.?Äù
Deborah Jowitt
The Village Voice
?ÄúBy the time that the first piece is completed, as you blister your hands with applause, you wish you had brought that cell phone so you could call your friends and get them into the theatre now! Creators and performers Dorfman and Froot have created a evening of visual and vocal choreography that will prod your thought process and caress your heart. [They] produce an electric intimacy that showers the audience.?Äù
John Lee
Electronic Link Journey
?ÄúIf you miss [Live Sax Acts] you are out of your mind.?Äù
Francis Mason
The World of Dance
WQXR Radio,
New York
?ÄúIntelligent, imaginative, well-crafted work that offers sagacious insights into human affairs while making you laugh hysterically.?Äù
Lisa Jo Sagolla
Backstage
?ÄúCommitted and demanding, nerve-wracking and funny, Live Sax Acts is about friendship, boundaries, conflict, violence, resolution and, ultimately, love. As in life, truces are hard-won and delivered with intense energy. One could do worse than to turn to these artists for solutions to the problem of how to build peace in thus violent, fractured society.?Äù
Sasha Anawalt
LA Weekly
?ÄúIn a disarmingly cheery and inventively rhythmic deconstruction of male aggression, multidisciplinary performers Dan Froot and David Dorfman turn whole libraries of behavioral science into the satiric Live Sax Acts. Live Sax Acts remains deft, funny and devastatingly on target from first to last.?Äù
Lewis Segal
The Los Angeles Times
?ÄúDan Froot simply has to appear onstage, smile, and say ?Äúhello,?Äùand everyone in the audience is immediately a fan.?Äù
Lisa Jo Sagolla
Backstage
?ÄúNo one probes the intimate relationship between a sax player and his horn quite as boldly as Dan Froot. His texts and onstage persona slip from the comedic to the poignant, his wry sincerity allowing the dark elements to sneak up on you. We read him as both daring and vulnerable.?Äù
Deborah Jowitt
The Village Voice
?ÄúFroot is an evocative storyteller with a crazy, irrepressible imagination and the simplest and most unassuming of performance styles. As a result, his subtle and unexpected shifts between comedy and tragedy can be harrowing. Without sentimentality, Froot manages to suggest the naivete of the hip, the pain of long repression and the terror of feeling alone. Full-throttle laughter turns to dazed silence as Froot spins his audience with him into a dark vacuum. It is quite an achievement.?Äù
Jennifer Dunning
The New York Times
?ÄúFroot is a beguiling performer, shamelessly mingling virtuosity, emotional coloring, willfulness and playfulness.?Äù
Cathy Curtis
Los Angeles Times
?ÄúStructurally ingenious... The hilarious duets explore the theme of alpha males dutifully spraying their territory, beset by insecurity and redeemed by mutual affection. Every move, every word explores and expands on the idea; everything counts.?Äù
Deborah Jowitt
The Village Voice
?ÄúIt's fast, brilliantly witty and has a cutting edge of truthful perception not just in what it says but in the flurries of body language that are cunningly choreographed into dance. Froot and Dorfman see dance in terms other than moving bodies alone. Words dance: they jig, dodge, play tricks and strike attitudes.?Äù
Mary Brennan
The Herald (Scotland)
?ÄúA star turn for Froot and Dorfman... Both the talk and physical performances are daring and practiced pieces of surrealistic tomfoolery.?Äù
Jennifer Dunning
The New York Times
?Äú...lighthearted and singular. Dan Froot takes the stage with a saxophone in a performance that is sax comedy, sax rap and sax dance. The hilarious piece is a wonderful exploration of sound tempered by a fertile imagination, a childlike sense of wonder and great technical virtuosity.?Äù
Marty Shuter
Savannah Morning News
?ÄúDan Froot approaches the program Blow Molding with the narrative charm of a storyteller, the metaphors of a musician and slapstick of a great physical comedian. The mix is a pleasure to watch. A large part of Froot's artistry is that he has transferred the sense of comfort musicians have with an audience, allowing them to chat with the audience and seem more casual than staged, as does most dance. Within the world of drama, with its usual need for a suspension of disbelief, he has given us his personality and genuineness.?Äù
Kelly Hargraves
Dancing on a Line
?ÄúDan Froot is both imaginative and unclassifiable...a dancer, storyteller and actor who could be puckish one moment and poignant the next.?Äù
Jack Anderson
The New York Times
CONTACT:
Dan Froot
11405 Biona Drive
Los Angeles CA
90066-3307
phone 310.766.4942
fax 310.636.2757