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Showing posts with label contemporary dance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label contemporary dance. Show all posts
Thursday, March 5, 2015
Thursday, March 5, 2015
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Ten minutes into Romeo and Juliet the music stopped, the dancers disappeared and a contrite looking man walked on stage. He explained that the performance would be restarted as the projections weren't working. After a short wait they were fixed and we tried again. This time each character was introduced with a large projection of their character's name behind them. What I found fascinating was that even without the projections it was plainly obvious who was who purely through body language and staging.
The stomping, muscled bad-boy? Well that's Tybalt. The robed man with the Shaolin dance style? Friar Lawrence. The leaping, graceful and vivacious teenage girl? No prizes for figuring that one out. That the show was this communicative so quickly bodes well, especially given my slight misgivings about ballet.
Despite enjoying the ballet movie subgenre (both Red Shoes and Black Swan are faves), my sole direct experience a sceptical 13 year old me being dragged to Swan Lake. After an hour of flouncy, tutu clad leaping I was bored to tears. But perhaps now, with a bit of cultural experience under my belt (and a smidge more patience) this ballet might just be the one for me.
Then again, maybe if 13 year old me had been taken to a ballet that featured the music of Jay Z, Katy Perry, LMFAO, My Chemical Romance and Lady Gaga I might have perked up a bit. This production, by BAD BOYS OF DANCE, directed by Rasta Thomas and choreographed by Adrienne Canterna, sticks a mischievous middle finger in the face of snootily tuxedoed 'high' culture - popping Prokofiev on the same cultural shelf as Party Rock Anthem.
Given that Romeo and Juliet is the story of two rebellious teenagers thumbing their noses at an ossified society and getting mad rutty, the obnoxiously punk attitude fits the material to a tee. The show is fuelled by the idea of kicking back against authority, which it does through gravity-defying somersaults and backflips, hip-hop influences in the dancing and the (slightly Baz Luhrmann influenced) fashions, which run the gamut from Gaga-ish art couture to Latin street gangs.
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Watching a narrative told through contemporary dance, even one as familiar as Romeo and Juliet, requires the audience to up their observational skills. Every facial expression, kick, bounce and gesticulation adds up to complex visual vocabulary. Whether you could watch this production while entirely ignorant of the story and pick up what's going on is iffy (they summarise the entire plot in the programme), but snatches of Shakespeare's dialogue spring to mind unbidden throughout, communicated purely through motion. Mercutio's strangled "A plague o' both your houses!" comes through as clear as day, as does Romeo's hushed "But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?".
Smooth as the dancing is, the slightly clunky pacing distracts. Rather than present a continuous narrative, the show is broken into 24 separate sequences, between which the stage is cleared and we dutifully applaud. If I were being charitable I'd suggest that this is to emulate the atmosphere of a pop concert, but realistically it's because these disparate songs don't quite fit together. While enjoyable as is, I can't help but feel this might have become stratospherically wonderful if they'd manage to mash each song into the next, 2 Many DJs style.
As such, the experience is less that we're watching Romeo and Juliet and more that we're watching a Romeo and Juliet themed pop show. There's a decent argument that this makes it a bit plasticky - but then ephemeral, uncynical pop trifles are very much my bag. Anyway, regardless of all other concerns, seeing a daydreaming Juliet ecstatically dancing to Katy Perry's Teenage Dream, or their wedding soundtracked to Lady Gaga's Edge of Glory (complete with a hippie dance sextet), light up the pleasure centres of my brain like few other things I've seen on stage.
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Even if you're not into the whole pop thing, you can't help but appreciate the sheer skill of the dancers involved. I couldn't rip my gaze from Adrienne Canterna's Juliet. With a shock of glossy platinum hair she looked oddly ephemeral, as if her skin was made of glass. That apparent fragility makes each one of these leaps, tosses and flips that much more impressive - as if she'd shatter into a thousand pieces if she fell. At the other end the scale is Ryan Carlson's mean-as-all-hell Tybalt, whose muscular gymnastics infuse every motion into aggressive.
I walked out of this show with a big smile on my face, swept up in the sheer performance energy throughout and the simple ballisness of squeezing Shakespeare and ballet into the same space as Bruno Mars and My Chemical Romance. On further reflection there's something intangibly missing: fragments of emotion that vanish into the narrative gaps. It all adds up to a hollow experience. But still, it's a hell of a fun hollow experience.
★★★
Romeo and Juliet is at the Peacock Theatre until 29th March. Tickets here.
Given that Romeo and Juliet is the story of two rebellious teenagers thumbing their noses at an ossified society and getting mad rutty, the obnoxiously punk attitude fits the material to a tee. The show is fuelled by the idea of kicking back against authority, which it does through gravity-defying somersaults and backflips, hip-hop influences in the dancing and the (slightly Baz Luhrmann influenced) fashions, which run the gamut from Gaga-ish art couture to Latin street gangs.
Watching a narrative told through contemporary dance, even one as familiar as Romeo and Juliet, requires the audience to up their observational skills. Every facial expression, kick, bounce and gesticulation adds up to complex visual vocabulary. Whether you could watch this production while entirely ignorant of the story and pick up what's going on is iffy (they summarise the entire plot in the programme), but snatches of Shakespeare's dialogue spring to mind unbidden throughout, communicated purely through motion. Mercutio's strangled "A plague o' both your houses!" comes through as clear as day, as does Romeo's hushed "But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?".
Smooth as the dancing is, the slightly clunky pacing distracts. Rather than present a continuous narrative, the show is broken into 24 separate sequences, between which the stage is cleared and we dutifully applaud. If I were being charitable I'd suggest that this is to emulate the atmosphere of a pop concert, but realistically it's because these disparate songs don't quite fit together. While enjoyable as is, I can't help but feel this might have become stratospherically wonderful if they'd manage to mash each song into the next, 2 Many DJs style.
As such, the experience is less that we're watching Romeo and Juliet and more that we're watching a Romeo and Juliet themed pop show. There's a decent argument that this makes it a bit plasticky - but then ephemeral, uncynical pop trifles are very much my bag. Anyway, regardless of all other concerns, seeing a daydreaming Juliet ecstatically dancing to Katy Perry's Teenage Dream, or their wedding soundtracked to Lady Gaga's Edge of Glory (complete with a hippie dance sextet), light up the pleasure centres of my brain like few other things I've seen on stage.
Even if you're not into the whole pop thing, you can't help but appreciate the sheer skill of the dancers involved. I couldn't rip my gaze from Adrienne Canterna's Juliet. With a shock of glossy platinum hair she looked oddly ephemeral, as if her skin was made of glass. That apparent fragility makes each one of these leaps, tosses and flips that much more impressive - as if she'd shatter into a thousand pieces if she fell. At the other end the scale is Ryan Carlson's mean-as-all-hell Tybalt, whose muscular gymnastics infuse every motion into aggressive.
I walked out of this show with a big smile on my face, swept up in the sheer performance energy throughout and the simple ballisness of squeezing Shakespeare and ballet into the same space as Bruno Mars and My Chemical Romance. On further reflection there's something intangibly missing: fragments of emotion that vanish into the narrative gaps. It all adds up to a hollow experience. But still, it's a hell of a fun hollow experience.
★★★
Romeo and Juliet is at the Peacock Theatre until 29th March. Tickets here.
Friday, November 14, 2014
Friday, November 14, 2014
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As long time readers will know, I can bullshit my way through almost anything. From the freakiest performance art to high-falutin' opera I can just about bluff my way through to a reasoned analysis. But contemporary dance and experimental choreography? This might be my Achilles heel. I know a little about a lot of things, but all I know about dance is what I've picked up from cheesy Hollywood musicals and interviews with popstars. So writing a indepth and well reasoned review of Week 2 of Emerge Festival "new dance works by emerging choreographers" might be a bit of a challenge. But I like a challenge. So let's get to it.
First on the bill were Ana Beatriz Meireles and Klaudia Wittman's Circe. This is described as "If we make truth stand on its head, do we generally fail to notice that our own head, too, is not in its right position?" I've got to admit that didn't exactly fill me with confidence that I'd 'get' much of out it. But, a few minutes in one of the performers was writhing about on the floor in a grey fabric sack looking like something that'd escaped from Jacob's Ladder - this I can enjoy. The two performers move from patterns of cool synchronity to violent conflict, mixing in primal animal movements and creating character from simple movement. I breath a sigh of relief, perhaps this isn't going to be so incomprehensible after all.
In fact, quite a few of these performances are straightforwardly funny. Nina von der Werth's Gender Bend, performed by Ali Goldsmith, Lucia Chocarro, Thomas Hands and Victoria Guy, is one of them The crux of this is feminine men and masculine women. So the bearded and buff dancers strike coquettish poses, waggle their chests and jut their hips from side to side, while the women strut around aggressively, slobbily pawing at their breasts.
This progresses from a dance showcasing the two styles, through an impressive interpretation of thoughts during a date translated to motion and finally into a mimed rendition of Robin Thicke's Give It To U. This is an obvious highlight: Chocarro and Guy stomp their way around the stage like they own the place while the two men gyrate in pants and bowties behind them. It's funny, expertly performed and makes its point entirely through movement, which I suppose is the point of all this.
The comedic atmosphere continues with Julia Thorneycroft's Endeavour, performed by Vicki Hearne and Murilo Leite D'Imperio. The idea is anthropology crossed with reality TV, imagining the evolution of man as a parallel with television shows. Narrated by an authoritative sounding Jon Beedel, the dancers don confused, nonverbal cavemen personae. So, During a Countdown segment they come up with "ug!" and "ug ug!" as their words.
Now, much of this is built upon TV shows I don't know much about, but I imagine the bit in the middle with the baking trays was a take on The Great British Bake-Off. The best sequence was a portion where the dancers began dancing 'badly' (I think to reference Britain's Got Talent). I imagine it goes against years of training to screw up so badly on purpose, so credit to the two for making this wholly believable.
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| Ana Beatriz Meireles & Klaudia Wittman |
This progresses from a dance showcasing the two styles, through an impressive interpretation of thoughts during a date translated to motion and finally into a mimed rendition of Robin Thicke's Give It To U. This is an obvious highlight: Chocarro and Guy stomp their way around the stage like they own the place while the two men gyrate in pants and bowties behind them. It's funny, expertly performed and makes its point entirely through movement, which I suppose is the point of all this.
 |
| Vicki Hearne & Murilo Leite D'Imperio (in rehearsal) |
Now, much of this is built upon TV shows I don't know much about, but I imagine the bit in the middle with the baking trays was a take on The Great British Bake-Off. The best sequence was a portion where the dancers began dancing 'badly' (I think to reference Britain's Got Talent). I imagine it goes against years of training to screw up so badly on purpose, so credit to the two for making this wholly believable.
 |
| Kirstie Shears & Michael James Gilburt |
The final performance; Gerrard Martin Dance's Heyoka, performed by Hannah Burfield, Saaya Takaoka, Jodie Honeybourney and Victoria Winter, headed even further into the abstract. The four black clad dancers began by apparently re-enacting the famous 'ascent of humanity' diagram, rising up from amphibian-like creature, through ape, to protohominid and up to (wo)man. These evolutionary processes are sped up or reversed as the dancers are confined inside boxes, each exploring their surroundings and eventually breaking free.
This is a conceptual dance odyssey, one whose narrative thread I lost track of pretty early on. By the time the dancers were stripping off their black clothes to reveal patterned leotards I had absolutely no idea what this was meant to be communicating. But that's okay. Just because I don't understand something doesn't mean I don't enjoy it, and there's a simple pleasure in watching these dancers for whom every tiny motion of their bodies is precise and considered. I especially enjoyed Saaya Takaoka, who even among these four managed to stand out, revealing her own personality within the work.
So interpretative, contemporary dance isn't as inaccessible as I'd suspected. While I still don't think this kind of stuff will ever be entirely up my street I still had a pretty damn good time. Credit is due to all the performers, choreographers and organisers for putting on a consistently excellent evening.
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