Alexie, Partner Test Their Roles

Sun., Aug. 25, 1996

Don Adair Correspondent

“Gathering of Four Winds” Thursday, Aug. 22, The Met

Great performances are the result of risk-taking; no performer achieves greatness without challenging the status quo.

Sherman Alexie walked the high-wire Thursday at The Met and while he didn’t crash, neither did he fly.

Alexie, a Spokane/Coeur d’Alene Indian much honored for his poetry and fiction, also is a brilliant humorist who uses humor as both a tool and a weapon.

Thursday, Alexie upped the stakes by taking on a partner, Colville tribal grants coordinator John Sirius. The team achieved momentary flashes of comic insight, but the new partners spent much of their time feeling their way around unfamiliar territory.

Sirius’ inexperience was compounded by Alexie’s command of the stage, but given time and experience, the partnership - if that’s what it is - could develop into something noteworthy.

No question marks, though, about Alexie’s partnership with musician Jim Boyd; it has matured dramatically over the past two years.

Rarely have rock and poetry worked as well together as in their collaboration, with Boyd’s band Rez Bound, on two Alexie/Boyd collaborations, “Small World” and “The Wake.”

Boyd showed his new band to a Spokane audience for the first time Thursday.

The addition of bass and drums adds depth and resonance to his songs of pride, honor and loss.

Northern Plateau, an exhibition dance troupe, opened with colorful demonstrations of a number of popular competitive dances. The older, more-accomplished dancers often found themselves upstaged by their exuberant young counterparts.

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