LED: MOVES & MOVIES—SILVER CITY (2021)

Tony Carnell & Angel Abaya.  Photo: © Steve Smith

The partnership of dance with film elevated the movie camera from mere equipment capturing dance to a stylized coordination of dance and camera movement, expanding the impulse towards narrative traction through filmic editing techniques, which provided spectatorial participation within choreography and unique perspectives from varied camera angles. As stated earlier, the matrix of choreocinema were the Busby Berkeley musicals of the 1930s that—along with the technological innovations leant to dance—inflected the social climate of the time, namely the palpable effects of the Great Depression and the role that movie musicals played in lifting spirits through the escape of entertainment. The ability of dance and music to further the story of that social moment arguably reached its most popular expression (albeit decades later) in Singin’ In the Rain (1952), which chronicled the shift from silents to talkies (often cited as the greatest musical film and one of the greatest films ever made). Less committed to optimism was Pennies From Heaven (1981) that laid bare the strenuous desire to rise above the weight of the Great Depression. 

When the LED production of Silver City premiered at the Morrison Center in October 2021, it too had its social moment to negotiate. The COVID pandemic was in full force, “social distancing” had entered the American lexicon as a scary but necessary caution, and—as Dana Oland detailed at the Idaho Statesman—strict protocols at the Morrison were in place with audience members having to show proof of vaccination or a negative test taken within 48 hours in order to attend, with masks required for everyone while in the building. The decision to perform Silver City at the height of a pandemic was not endeavored blithely, LED knew it would limit the number of people who would be willing to show up, but they felt the need to rise above the pallor of the social moment to offer hope through creativity. 

Creativity is always on full display with any LED project. Their multimedia aesthetics—blending dance, music, film, acting—champion a theatricality unique to the company and treasured by their faithful audiences. After being five years in their vault, the filmic record of the Morrison performance of Silver City premiered on Friday, May 15, 2026, at The Dixon as part of LED’s “Moves & Movies” choreocinema festival. Silver City was written by Lauren Edson and Andrew Stensaas, directed by Quinn B. Wharton, choreographed by Edson, and atmospherically scored by Stensaas (with a tip of the cowboy hat to Ennio Morricone). 

As Dana Oland described for The Statesman in 2021: “Silver City gives a contemporary twist on the mythology of the American West pulling from the ‘spaghetti western’ genre set against an Idaho backdrop. It’s the tale of the lone stranger looking to make his way in the world and the townsfolk he encounters at the local saloon. These artists are holding their cards close to the vest and not giving too many details. And although the story seems straightforward, they want to turn those well-known movie tropes on their heads.” 

That achieved aim is both brave and provocative in Silver City, articulated through a revisionist view of Idaho’s turn-of-the-century history firmly in alignment with robust bodies of scholarship exploring gender variance in the historical American West, challenging traditional, hyper-masculine stereotypes of the frontier. Historians have documented how the region's geographic isolation, male-dominated demographics, and Indigenous cultures fostered environments where gender nonconformity regularly occurred. Key among these studies are those of historian Peter Boag whose book Re-Dressing America's Frontier Past (2011) analyzes hundreds of reported historical cases of individuals living as the opposite gender, examining how frontier culture accommodated, and sometimes necessitated, cross-dressing. Research reveals that many pioneer women and immigrants adopted male identities to secure employment, travel safely, or escape restrictive Victorian societal pressures in newly established settlements. 

Public history projects, such as the Oregon Historical Society's exhibit “Crossing Boundaries: Portraits of a Transgender West”, and ongoing university theses continue to uncover unrecorded or censored queer and non-binary histories from this era. 

Academics aside, Silver City dramatizes those historical reconstructions through the iconoclastic casting of Tony Carnell as a seductive courtesan, Colleen Loverde as a frustrated priest, and the indefatigable Ching Ching Wong (recently showcased at LED) as a mustachioed gambler surreptitiously in love with a saloon bartender (Franco Nieto). Their pas de deux was a gender-spinning tour-de-force that lifted my eyebrows high on my forehead. Further shout-outs to the two undeniably handsome male leads: bad cowboy Elijah Labay and good cowboy Evan Fisk, and costume curation by Izze Rumpp whose fringed vests on the dueling cowboys added swirl and swagger. As value added Colleen Loverde provided a strong live replication of her character’s solo in the film as introduction to the evening’s second act. 

On location in Silver City:

  

On stage at the Morrison Center: