Chroma a Kaleidoscope of Color Based Scenes

Chroma is billed as a color spectrum anthology show, it is a mixture of artistic mediums, film, movement, music, and a lot of puppetry. It’s not the type of show that really lends itself to a full review, it’s better to give a hint of what you’ll experience and who will best enjoy it. The show is structured into nine seperate segments, each using a color of the visual spectrum as it’s title. Two of the segments are bookends to the show as a whole, they are titled Black and White. It’s a very abstract section that seems to be exploring first the absence of color. I thought of what I was seeing as a black hole that was sucking all the colors that were presented into it, leaving only black. At the end, White seemed to be the release of all the colors back into the universe, at least that was story my mind filled in. The other segments are Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet. My two favorites were Red and Violet. Red, though I have no idea what the message was, it had a beauty to the movement that was wholly engaging. Violet, which was a dance duel using draperies, was visually eloquent and well choreographed by the writer of the piece, Dylan Kostman.

Every one of the segments had something interesting about it. I think the best way to approach the show is to get less hung up on finding meaning in each color, but to look for what connects or impresses you about each segment. Orange was a really beautiful puppet show about a Scarecrow. Yellow is a short film about a child’s memory. Green was another puppet story that was a little harder to relate to but had some really interesting movements. Blue is basically a live puppet show to a picture story book, which is being read to the audience about a crab and a huron, featuring some really well constructed puppets. Indigo was a shadow puppet show, that didn’t necessarily succeed on the story level but I found the visuals in sync with the music to be really creative. Which is a great example of how to approach each color, don’t get hung up on whether a certain aspect is working, look at the whole and zero in on what grabs you. I really enjoyed the music throughout. Before the show opened they play a lot of pop songs that have colors in them i.e. Yellow Submarine and Mr. Blue sky. Then throughout the show there was music created for them by Steven Zubich, Mahmoud Hakima, and Rhiannon Fiskradatz, all of it really well suited to the mood of each scene.

I think the show would be most enjoyed by families with kids who are into doing art projects and imaginative play. Phantom Chorus Theatre Presents Chroma: a Color Anthology Show runs through June 11th at Dreamland Arts in St. Paul. For more information and to purchase tickets go to https://phantomchorus.com/