Review of Striding Lion Performance Group's Remember The... (Alamo) at The Viaduct

Once upon a time I went to a dance show, and it was called Remember The...(Alamo). It was about the Alamo and kids learning about it in school. I think the characters lived in Texas because I think this takes place in Texas. It felt more real than if you just read a book and saw pictures about The Alamo. The Alamo was a big fight that happened because both of these two countries, the United States and Mexico, wanted Texas because it was a big state. One of the biggest, actually, in America. I did not know anything about the Alamo, but I thought "this seems cool," so I went to watch it and it was very interesting. It makes you want to know more about the Alamo and who were the people who fought in it. I think I realized when I went to the show that there are lots of ways to tell the same historical stories. What I already knew was that fictional stories can have more than one way to be told. For example, in The Little Mermaid, there are two ways to tell her story. The first one, the way it was written, is she kills herself of a broken heart and turns into a clump of dried up seaweed, which I don't think the little kids would like. But then Walt Disney's company changed the story so that she goes and marries the prince she want to marry.

When I got into the theater, I was like, "Wow! I did not know it would be like this because I thought the dancers would enter, but they didn't. They were already on stage playing their characters. The set was three screens where videos would come up. And there were four different places. There was like a bar or like a house--I don't know which. And there was also a school. And there was also like a living room that had a tv that was on. And there was also a desk that was tilted a little bit. You get to walk around, but lots of people didn't. I don't know why, because that is a lot of fun: getting to move around during a play and getting to interact with the characters.

I really liked how they used rock songs like a song about Davy Crockett that goes like this: "Davy Crockett. What you got in your pocket?" They also used slow sad songs like the one about Tumbleweeds. And it goes like this: "And the tumblin' tumbleweeds." They also used violin songs, which were actually played by a violinist in the show. And there was also a Johnny Cash song, and he is one of my favorite singers, so I really liked that one. And it went like this, "Hey, Santy Anna, we're killing your soldiers below, so that everybody will remember the Alamo." Using all these different songs made you feel like you were in all these different time periods. And that I meant as a compliment because that is a good thing because people are still learning about the Alamo. The show is about the Alamo and learning about the Alamo which has happened for many years.

I really liked the kind of dance that the kids did when they were pretending to be soldiers. They were pretending to be kids who were learning about the Alamo and were excited about the Alamo. They would make guns with their fingers and their feet. That was awesome. And when they would use their feet I just thought that was really creative because I have never seen anybody use their feet as a gun before. I thought it was cool how the kids pretended to die in a awesome battle-y sort of way. I don't like battles, but I think it is interesting to learn about them so then you won't fight about the stupid things that they fight about--like countries that somebody had and then somebody takes their country. It also made me scared and I felt like I was in an actual battle because they didn't always act in a kiddy way, they sometimes acted in a scary, "I'm going to kill this person" way.

When they did "Davy Crockett, what you got in your pocket?" then they would dance in like a rock and roll but jazzy sort of way. I just thought that was a good way to express their emotions about Davy Crockett. I think they thought he was a hero because he went on some adventures, which I haven't heard about yet, but I suspect they are really cool if they liked them that much. They would slide on to one knee with the other one behind them, and then they would shake their heads up and down in a yes position, and that move kind of showed me they were saying, "You are important to us; you are a hero." I think people like that did exist sort of. But I don't think it was true that Davy Crockett killed a bear when he was only three.

There was this cool game that they played that went like this: "Jim Bowie! Jim Bowie!" and different people would go into the center and say what they thought he was. And then people would act out what they just said: "Jim Bowie was a very brave man!" or "Jim Bowie was a very calm man." And then they would say "Jim Bowie! Jim Bowie!" again and someone else would go. And so on. That told me that they also thought that he was a brave and awesome and cool person. He did lots of other heroic things, but at the Alamo he was sick in bed. He fought back for himself, which anyone would do, but he didn't fight for any other person. It makes you think he was a heroic person, but he did things that were not for his country. He died in bed sick and not in the battle, which is not as heroic as other people who are not as famous were.

There was a part where somebody was trying to get through all these people and then she would say: "Right, left, slither through" and stuff like that. And then somebody after they had had a turn would go in front until they got to the wall. Then she would have to fight them. They were trying to show you how people still study Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett and try to fight like them. It looked very hard to crawl through like six people who kept getting in front of you again and again and again and again.

I think this show should be for ages 7 and up because of the dying. I think people should go see this if they want to learn about the Alamo because it is a good start for younger kids to begin on learning about the Alamo. People who would like this show are people who like battles, dancing, and Davy Crockett. I think this show is a very awesome one because it teaches you lots of things that you have not even learned yet when you are my age and it is cool and scary. Older people should see it because it makes them remember...the Alamo.