From the Fringe: ‘Creative Mind Experiment’

Fringe review: ‘Creative Mind Experiment,’ Jessica Mariko and Linda Eve Elchak, Orlando

By Elizabeth Maupin

There really is something for everybody (and a few things that mean nothing to most of us) in Creative Mind Experiment, Jessica Mariko and Linda Eve Elchak’s show-that-isn’t-a-show, which is different every time you go. Mariko and Elchak asked a lot of Orlando creative types to listen to a 3-minute piece of music and create a piece based on it. The results are wildly different, certainly creative and occasionally top-notch.

Thursday night Brandon Roberts contributed a bittersweet silent-clown piece; Jeremy Seghers sang his own version of the Agnus Dei and two different dancers, Melissa Cohen and Kassi Abreu, performed two very different dances. Bob Kodzis did a lesson in group dynamics, asking each of us to stand if we agreed with various statements on a video screen. And a couple of others did pieces that were more compelling in the explanation than in the execution.

Best of all, the character that is sure to become this year’s Fringe legend – Evan Miga’s Dog-Powered Robot, which is just what it sounds like and comes with a full set (a cardboard-box city), a singer (Britt Daley) and music composed by David Traver for this 3-minute piece. Miga’s Pomeranian deserves to become famous for its stage debut, which caused near-hysteria the night I saw it. Every dog should have this kind of day.

Remaining performances: 11:15 a.m. Saturday 5/29, 4:20 p.m. Sunday 5/30. Green venue.

(Photo of Dog-Powered Robot courtesy of Rene Photography, Creative Mind Experiment and the Fringe.)