Tim Smith-Stewart is a Seattle based interdisciplinary artist who uses text as his primary medium for creating performances and installations. Awaiting Oblivion...is a theater performance centered around the messages of "A.O.," an anonymous street artist who has tasked Smith-Stewart with creating a performance as a way to share A.O.'s temporary solutions for navigating the dystopian world we find ourselves in at present.

I sit in my seat after passing, hugging, encountering so many friends and loved ones.  

I decide to let the program sit in my lap, perusing it only at the intermission. 

The curtain closes, there is a speech, the lights go out.

A ferocity that loses tenderness in momentum and velocity.  

A video screen blank with anticipation.

Sounds in the dark of feet and intricacy.  

Slippery moments that become too raucous.

Hints of a love story lost in a series of conventional dance constructions of solo, trio, duet and ensemble

Ya gotta love the NWNW Festival. Every bit of "you're kidding me!" shares the spotlight with virtuosity and finesse. Whatever instinct you have to drop a critique the size of a small building on to the performers collapses behind the truth that all these people are simply giving it a go.  And that deserves a level of respect that humbles any impulse to be overly critical. So I'll just be respectfully critical, more of a first responder on the scene of a fire.....enjoying and commenting on the chaos of the spectacle while trying to grasp important details.

Details: