RIGA - Stomp, the international sensation that combines percussion, movement and visual comedy, returns to Latvia in a wild encore. Their first Riga performance was held in 2003, and the Latvians just couldn't get enough. One of the most original sounds in music today, Stomp use everything from trash cans to plastic bags, toilet plungers to clunky boots, metal poles to hubcaps in creating a symphony of resounding objects.
The only things you won't find on stage are conventional instruments. It's a spectacle both for the eyes and the ears.
Since the group debuted in 1991, Stomp has received overwhelming success marked by rave reviews, numerous awards and sell-out engagements. For more than a decade now, they have swept city after city, leaving their audiences in awe.
The show is the result of a 10-year collaboration between creators Luke Creswell and Steve McNicholas. As members of the British street band Pookiesnackenburger and the theater group Cliffhanger, the duo presented a series of street comedy musicals at the annual Edinburgh Festival throughout the early 1980s. After two albums, a television series, a Heineken commercial and a short percussive movie for HBO, Creswell and McNicholas produced, financed and directed the original Stomp in 1991.
Over the next few years, Stomp played around the world, culminating in a sell-out season at London's Sadler's Wells Theatre in January 1994. The next month, the show began its record-breaking run at New York's Orpheum Theatre, where it still plays today.
Today, Stomp has performed 10,000 shows worldwide with more than 10 million tickets sold. The troupe's show has been described as "an aural assault on the senses" and "Electrifying! Triumphs in the infinite variety of human experience," by the Los Angeles Times. One critic from London's Time Out magazine even went so far as to say, "Stomp does for rhythm what Freud did for sex."
Clearly, the innovative group has become an international sensation.
The percussionists don't need a story. They're performance carries no plot. In fact, nobody speaks a word. Instead, the group of rhythmically gifted artists 's who could double over as mime performers - choreograph body with music, giving life to everyday junk.
Many have wondered, "What are they trying to say?" But there is no political message behind Stomp 's the music lends itself to the viewers' own interpretation. Whatever meaning one may find behind the vibrations of trash is left to the imagination.
Yet one thing's for sure, Stomp has become a highly addictive slice of 21st century pop culture.
Although their Riga performance is still two months away, half of the available tickets are already sold out. So if you don't want to miss this uniquely outrageous show, get your tickets soon, or Stomp! They'll be gone.
Stomp
Riga Congress Hall
March 27 - April 1
Tickets: 20 - 30 lats
www.ticketservice.lv
