bANGER: The Power Hour

Winner of the 2005 People’s Choice Award, Dancing on the Edge Festival
Listed as one of the Vancouver Sun’s Best shows of 2006

We all remember that guy from high school: Black Sabbath pounding from his headphones, draped in standard army-issue clothing. Not much of a talker. You may have made fun of him or, at best, ignored him. In bANGER, Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg sheds some light on this social reject and reconciles the differences between us and him.

In this dance-theatre hybrid created by the ever-morphing Friedenberg, the audience is reeled through the fast-paced, painful world of high school as seen through the eyes of a young man driven to find out how he fits in. Through heavy music, a lot of head-banging and a smidge of angst-ridden poetry, we are given a glimpse of the survival techniques of a boy on the verge of self-discovery.

“You don’t need to know or care about metal to be blown away by bANGER.”
-Deborah Meyers, The Vancouver Sun

“Friedenberg is a clear, clean and precise mover. Her physicality is a marvel of control, and her renderings…whether his swaggering walk, his humiliated defiance…-are triumphs of careful observation.
-Paula Citron, The Globe and Mail

“While not “dance” in formal terms, Friedenberg’s characterization is a physically exhausting, drum-solo-fast performance that’s a testament to her gift for gestural observation.”
-Janet Smith, Georgia Straight