Fri 22 April 2016
Sadler's Wells
BalletBoyz - Life
Pontus Lidberg - Rabbit
Javier de Frutos - Fiction
Returning to Sadler's Wells after Young Men, Artist Directors Michael Nunn and Willam Trevitt commission another brilliant double bill. Structured like two ends of the same argument, Rabbit and Fiction are brimming with rabbit imagery and tragicomedy.
Swedish choreographer, Pontus Lidberg's Rabbit marries surrealism and loneliness, against the cool landscape of gently wafting lengths of cloth and tolling bells. Clad in vaguely 1940s shirts, vests and braces, dancers with furry rabbit heads invade the space, hopping, skipping and cartwheeling. The tone is tender, with sudden outbursts in Górecki's score, which seem to initiate an exaggerated running motif that rocks back and forth. Later, a couple of rabbits linked hand to ankle, roll by like tumbleweed, as a fragile and inward solo unfolds in front of us.
We can't escape the niggling feeling that Lidberg's rather nordic choice of imagery in Rabbit is far more significant. As in Watership Down, The Animals of Farthing Wood and Of Mice and Men, Lidberg's rabbits seem to connote persecution and death. Coupled with the images of men draped over the shoulders of rabbits, like parachutes caught in treetops, there are poignant undertones of anguish as the bells toll over Lidberg's stage.
From Lidberg's surreal realm, we move to Fiction, by Venezuelan choreographer Javier de Frutos. Wanting to create a work about the death of a choreographer, de Frutos imagined his own (rather inventive) death, since it 'seems impolite to kill anyone but himself'. Fiction sees a stark change in its stripped set design and the welcome use of comedy.
The dancers move with confused expressions to critic Ismene Brown's words, unfurling a canon of rippling arms and torsos beneath a large ballet barre. A throbbing mass of bodies follows shell-shocked dancer Marc Galvez, as he struggles to come to terms with the fictitious death of his choreographer. De Frutos creates gorgeous kaleidoscopic formations around the ballet barre, as the men slice the air with blade-like arms. He takes full advantage of the BalletBoyz's precision, and risk-taking athleticism.
The curtain comes down on de Frutos' work with Galvez spinning, arms open to Donna Summer's anthem Last Dance. De Frutos is at once dead, resurrected and alive.
Maya Pindar
Life is at Sadler's Wells until Sunday 24 April.
Unlike other art forms, such as painting, sculpture, or literature;
dance is a fleeting, ephemeral form of art. Dance can not exist
outside of the time and space it was performed in. Painting, like sculpture and indeed literature, becomes a physical object that can be touched, relocated and preserved indefinitely. Yet, dance no longer exists in any form outside of the few minutes that it is performed.
Dance writers have the ability to resurrect images of dance movement, as well as reawaken emotions evoked through dance. Given its ephemeral nature, the images, emotions and meanings created through dance are completely lost after the performance has ended. So, the dance writer is given the power to resurrect, physically record and preserve these often intangible facets of dance.
Therefore, preserving the many interpretations and meanings found in
dance- not to mention their historical, cultural and political significance- is of the utmost important to dance writers.
Additionally, dance writers have the responsibility to write honestly and boldly. What is 'good' dance? And who decides what makes good dance? Other than word-of-mouth, the dance writer is responsible for creating excitement, criticism, recommendation and simply analysing dances. Spectators use dance reviews to decide what performances to watch, and equally which not to watch. In addition, dance artists may also depend on the opinions of dance writers for the success of their performances and tours.
So why is dance writing important? Dance writing has the invaluable ability to breathe life into the lost images and sentiments that are created in performance. But above all, dance writers hold the key to preserving, or even 'immortalising', an art form that would otherwise be lost.
