SPACE ODDITY Big Nazo welcome 2010. |
It was New Year’s Eve and in the belly of the Roxy nightclub, away from the teeming Bright Night crowds, there were monsters on the loose: creatures with protruding noses, googly eyes, and spindly legs.
Providence-based performance group Big Nazo — of the mountain trolls, breakdancing cops, and giant man-eating chia pet — was at it again.
Dr. Tremendanus, narrator and expert on intergalactic species, regaled adults and children alike.
Converse-wearing fish monsters gnashed their teeth and wide-eyed vegetables battled robots for the fate of the earth. A bug-headed break-dancer wearing silvery snake-skin pants popped and locked and furry jellyfish shook their tassels.
During a music montage, a two-dimensional spaceship floated over the stage while the Big Nazo Band covered David Bowie’s “Space Oddity.”
Some musicians played wind instruments through rubberized heads, the drummer sporting a costume reminiscent of Jabba the Hutt.
And then the stage-action stopped as a video screen descended. Images of one-eyed monsters eating downcity lamp posts flitted across the screen.
“Refused seats in the finest dining establishments, they take to the streets,” the narrator intoned.
But, as scenes of humans playing together with the creatures fill the screen, hope for peaceful co-existence in the New Year. “This is what we envision . . . in the year 2010!,” the narrator exclaimed.
To close out the spectacle, Dr. Tremendanus applauded the crowd for making it out in the face of apocalyptic events, including a snow storm, a meteor shower, and a solar flare from the sun that was sure to melt all downtown Providence buildings. He then instructed the band to play.
Starfish creatures bounded from the stage breaking a circle of sitting audience members. Green trolls hopped throughout the crowds. With tongues protruding, the rubberized puppets sniffed, touched and poked.
Some children leapt back.
“Don’t be concerned,” Dr. Tremendanus said. “But they do eat human flesh occasionally.”
As the Big Nazo Band kicked up, some youngsters grabbed hold of the creatures and engaged in a bit of dancing.
Seven-year-old Megan Toney was nervous at first. But after one creature reached out for a hug with one of its pointy appendages, she felt safe.
“They welcomed me in,” she said.
