Crazy rhythms Stomp hasn’t lost a beat BY JOHNETTE RODRIGUEZ

From its beginnings on the streets of Brighton, England in 1991, to its world-wide fame, the percussion/dance show Stomp has remained in the competent hands of its originators Luke Cresswell and Steve McNicholas. No selling out to a corporate production team, no passing along the development of new choreography to someone else. Cresswell and McNicholas currently have three ongoing casts of Stomp — one in London, one European touring company, and one North American troupe. The latter will be at the Providence Performing Arts Center May 6 through 8 (call [401] 421-ARTS). The full-tilt energy of the eight-member cast making rhythmic music on everything but drums — on castoff, everyday, and household items including the kitchen sink — should not be missed.

York native and assistant rehearsal director Billy Hickling, who takes the role of Sarge in this production, has been with Stomp for five years and with the American tour for one. He came out of buskering and touring with all kinds of bands (as a drummer) in England and Europe. For Stomp, he is prepared to do five different roles; some of the 12 rotating company members do up to eight.

"Because the performers change, this changes the atmosphere," Hickley explained, on the phone from a hotel room in Olympia, Washington. "The key to it is your own base level personality. All you’re really doing for Stomp is turning it up a couple notches. When you come to the show, maybe your thing is acting funny or incredible drumming licks or someone moves incredibly or has plain old charisma.

"Any one of these things could be used within the way the show works — it depends on which role they’re taking and what they’re like and then the role will change around them," he continued. "The music will stay, as it should be, but the way it is presented is entirely personal, down to whoever’s doing it that day — which is what keeps the show really fresh and genuine."

Judging from Hickling’s quick wit in our conversation, I’d bet he brings that along with his percussion background to the authority figure of Sarge, who’s the bossy liaison with the audience.

"I tell them, ‘This is what we’re doing, and you’re joining in — you ain’t got no choice about it — and by the way it’s a hell of a lot of fun,’" he relates with a chuckle. "But it’s a bit of a shock to people, ’cause they think ‘Oh, cracky, we’re doin’ this.’ We brook no disagreement.

"Sarge is quite stentorian," Hickling admitted. "But he’s also bemused by the freaks that he works with who just can’t keep the rhythm within their own pants. He kind of gazes about, like ‘What the hell? Who are these people?’ "

In fact these people push brooms in rhythmic patterns; they rattle matchboxes; they rip newspaper pages; they slam garbage lids; they bang on metal street signs, hubcaps, and overturned buckets; they tap long wooden poles against another dancer’s pole (shades of English Morris dances); they flick and snap Zippo lighters; they slap hands to thighs, chests, anything that resonates on their bodies . . . and they stomp.

That last number, called "Hands and Feet," is Hickling’s current favorite. It’s a large ensemble piece that begins with his solo, almost as if he’s discovering a rhythm out of nowhere. It builds to everyone playing counter-rhythms off each other, a lot of it improvised, which Hickling finds "very exciting to do in front of a crowd."

An element of danger enters into some of the other routines, such as "Suspensions," when dancers are hanging in mountaineer’s tethers, able to drum on the collage of scrap metal on the back wall with both hands and feet. Split-second timing is also crucial to "Poles" to keep from hitting someone or getting hit. Hickling recently sustained a terrible laceration to one finger when a pole splintered in his hands.

"The difficulty of the routines runs the whole gamut," he reflected, "and it varies from week to week. Like you might have a bad shoulder for ‘Poles’ or you’re trying to get a perfect 16th shake out of your matchbox and you can’t. It deserted me for a good two to three months — I just couldn’t shake — and then it came back one day. With the matchbox routine, it’s a wonderful feeling to pull in the audience to zero level to be really, really listening. What we’re doing is small, but it’s funny as well."

The show inccludes about 18 routines, and some of them are new since Stomp’s last visit to Providence, including a bit with folding office chairs and one with basketballs. Then there’s a new sequence for "Hands and Feet" that may appear in the Providence show and that Hickling was working on when we spoke: "It’s really bloody complicated. Groovy as hell but bending our minds really badly. It’s a way of changing the beats from regular steady fours into the bizarre world of fives and sixes. It’s just showing that our boss [Stillwell, in this case] is still a crazy, crazy man with a devil’s knowledge of rhythm."

And still a hands-on guy with the amazing rhythm riot that he and McNicholas created in Stomp.