Urban Scuba | 2009
YMHA Underground Swimming Pool
Philadelphia Fringe Festival
The Philadelphia Inquirer
September 4, 2009
by Ellen Dunkel
Labor Day is late this year. Let's go to the pool! Except that the pool at the Gershman Y doesn't have water, and it hasn't for 15 years. Instead, it's serving as the theater for Brian Sanders/JUNK's latest Live Arts Festival dance, Urban Scuba.
Labor Day is late this year. Let's go to the pool!
Except that the pool at the Gershman Y doesn't have water, and it hasn't for 15 years. Instead, it's serving as the theater for Brian Sanders/JUNK's latest Live Arts Festival dance, Urban Scuba.
Sanders, a former dancer with Momix, is witty, deadpan and a master of the absurd – but he also remembers the dance element. In previous performances, he Flashdance-d his way into Flushdance (think toilet) and used plastic water slides and pogo sticks at a former movie theater.
The photos for Urban Scuba show Sanders in a Speedo and flippers, balancing on his head in a bucket. Perspective comes into play in this show: The deep end of the pool minus the water is said to look very, very deep.
