Morrison Center reopens for live performance with a high-flying, first-of-its kind show
With Broadway making its return, and the Idaho Shakespeare Festival opening its third show this weekend as part of its pared-down summer season, the Morrison Center is ready to get into the act — with a reopening Block Party featuring a trio of performances on Saturday.
The Morrison Center will present three shows by one of the nation’s most creative dance companies, Bandaloop — out of Oakland, California — in collaboration with Boise’s creative multidisciplinary performing group, LED.
LED is the vision of Boise choreographer Lauren Edson and her husband, composer Andrew Stensaas. They blend dance, theatricality, visual art, original music and film to create rich project-based performances that lean into cinematic experiences.
With the tagline “The Sky is Not the Limit,” the vertical dance company Bandaloop is one of the global dance community’s most innovative. The artists blend climbing technology and dance to scale buildings, monuments and more around the world — with awe-inspiring results.
Now, they take on the riverside facade of the Morrison Center for the first part of the show. As the audience moves into the Center’s main lobby space, they’ll find it transformed for this one-of-a-kind event, according to its executive director, Laura Kendall.
“This is going to be something you won’t normally see at the Morrison, and something you may never see again,” she said in a phone interview.
The event on the 20th anniversary of 9/11 is divided into three performances to keep audience sizes limited for safety as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to affect Idaho. You’ll also find food trucks and a festive atmosphere — and yes, bring your mask.
Kendall and her creative staff began planning this event during the height of the global pandemic that shuttered Idaho’s largest proscenium theater for 18 months. She knew she wanted to do something very different and memorable, so she turned to Bandaloop, a company she had worked with in the past. When she brought Bandaloop’s artistic team to tour the Morrison, she included Edson and Stensaas in the group.
And everyone clicked.
Directed by Bandaloop’s Melecio Estrella, this collaboration also brought in San Francisco filmmaker Lindsay Gauthier to create projections of both companies filmed in the Idaho landscape, and San Francisco Ballet lighting designer Jim French to create a truly experiential event.
Titled “Transpire,” the performance explores our connection to and reliance on water. The goal is for the audience members to feel as if they are underwater as they enter the center’s lobby. The idea is to turn expectations of what a performance can be on their head, Edson said in a phone interview.
“We’re really flipping the script here on what an audience expects,” she said. “Everything happens in the (main lobby) of the center, not the stage. The hope is that the audience will feel immersed in the experience.”
“Transpire” starts outdoors, with Bandaloop artists scaling the Morrison Center facade. Then the performance moves into the lobby for an environmental visual installation, filled with projections filmed at Lucky Peak, Black Cliffs and along the Boise River — all set to original music — and capped off by a vocal performance by Angel Abaya.
This gentle salvo into theater brings a mix of hopefulness and trepidation.
“This is our move back into live performance,” Kendall said. “We’re all crossing our fingers and being super responsible and cautious on how we do everything, realizing that we still are in a pandemic. We are ready to pivot at any time.”
The Boise Phil opens its season on Sept. 18 at the center, with limited seating. Then the center’s first full-capacity run is the national tour of the revival production of “Cats,” set for Oct. 29-31.
Go see it
What: Reopening Block Party
Where: Morrison Center, 2201 Cesar Chavez Lane, on Boise State campus
When: 1, 3 and 6:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 11.
Tickets: $10 at MorrisonCenter.com, or at 208-426-1110.
COVID protocol: Masks are required for both the outdoor and indoor parts of all performances.
This story was originally published September 9, 2021 at 9:38 AM.
