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Let's Dance

See the news choreographed

A A A Comments By Daniel Daugherty Thursday, Apr 23 2009

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Let's face it: Somewhere along the way, American TV news outlets decided to emphasize entertainment values over news values--especially the cable networks. They milk the drama out of missing white girls, endlessly repeat video clips of a squirrel on water-skis and attach "-gate" to every scandal, no matter how trivial. Then, like a coked-up Scrooge McDuck, Jim Cramer throws Monopoly money in the air and calls it "financial advice." And it's all set to ominous soundtracks more fitting for a Hitchcock thriller, or perhaps media critic Neil Postman's worst nightmare. No surprise, then, that someone would boil all this infotainment down into its pure syrup form. The Daily Show does it, well, daily, and a Youtube search for "cable news remix" brings up no shortage of pre-packaged, overwrought dramatizing. Muscle Memory Dance Theatre goes a step further. Taking a gooey mess of American mainstream media clips and sound-bites--from TV, print, radio, billboards and the interwebs--Breaking News: Dancing With the Media is a choreographed exploration of a society informed through high-speed news consumption and what happens when it's all taken seriously. See it for yourself 8:15 p.m. Friday and Saturday at the Dallas Hub Theater, 2809 Canton St., as part of the 2009 DFW Fringe Festival. Tickets are $25. Visit dallashubtheater.org.
April 24-25, 8:15 p.m., 2009