Straight up, no irony
I have to say I wasn't as impressed with The Forsythe Company's Three atmospheric studies as I was with their crazy group table dance last year. Not because I'm one of those plebs who like a bit of brain candy over substance in their entertainment; just because a whole evening of feeling angst about the world with no way forward isn't my idea of a really intelligent or original statement through dance! (Maybe the fact that Forsythe is making the statement through dance IS the original aspect. Sad.)
So anyway, these 3 pieces are obviously a statement on war, and especially on the U.S. war with Iraq. The first piece is not set to any kind of music or sound: a mesmerizing coordinated-random group event that allowed us to pick out individual agency in this large group but also to see synchronization in stop-motions mimicking the expressions of civilians caught in a cross-fire.
The second piece was a strange theatrical performance which I found a bit heavy-handed: there is a danger in trying to present such a straight anti-war message with no irony, and I found the non-postmodernity (er, modernity?) a bit much, except that the whole thing is punctuated with about 5 minutes of totally bizarre screaching and contortions by one performer, 'the mother of an arrested civilian', the mike sounds distorting her voice as she writhes around on the spot, pulling some awfully creepy faces -- this was very effective.
The last study was again a bit preachy, the members of the group playing different roles, and vaguely dressed to represent police, military, civilians, or politicans. Very loud explosive sounds played throughout, and a woman was declaiming the whole time in the role of an American spokesperson. Interesting use of sound, with the mikes in various dancers' possessions, their distorted chest-pounding creates a convincing atmosphere of bombardment and chaos.
Overall the pieces were a bit too political in a way I'm not crazy about, as a raging politico myself. Then again I'm not even keen on war movies - I don't see the point unless you're prepared to go out and do something about it -- it just comes across as a bit of whinging! Ok I'm being too harsh here. There are some excellent clever bits in here that make it very worthwhile. And that's my review!
So anyway, these 3 pieces are obviously a statement on war, and especially on the U.S. war with Iraq. The first piece is not set to any kind of music or sound: a mesmerizing coordinated-random group event that allowed us to pick out individual agency in this large group but also to see synchronization in stop-motions mimicking the expressions of civilians caught in a cross-fire.
The second piece was a strange theatrical performance which I found a bit heavy-handed: there is a danger in trying to present such a straight anti-war message with no irony, and I found the non-postmodernity (er, modernity?) a bit much, except that the whole thing is punctuated with about 5 minutes of totally bizarre screaching and contortions by one performer, 'the mother of an arrested civilian', the mike sounds distorting her voice as she writhes around on the spot, pulling some awfully creepy faces -- this was very effective.
The last study was again a bit preachy, the members of the group playing different roles, and vaguely dressed to represent police, military, civilians, or politicans. Very loud explosive sounds played throughout, and a woman was declaiming the whole time in the role of an American spokesperson. Interesting use of sound, with the mikes in various dancers' possessions, their distorted chest-pounding creates a convincing atmosphere of bombardment and chaos.
Overall the pieces were a bit too political in a way I'm not crazy about, as a raging politico myself. Then again I'm not even keen on war movies - I don't see the point unless you're prepared to go out and do something about it -- it just comes across as a bit of whinging! Ok I'm being too harsh here. There are some excellent clever bits in here that make it very worthwhile. And that's my review!
4 Comments:
hey katherine - thanks for the review! as it turns out, Forsythe cie. is coming to Ottawa, but to present retrospective works (and programmed in the ballet category...sigh) so it's cool to get a review from London on recent work. From what you say we might enjoy the retrospective more!
it's true, it's very hard to make "non-ironic" statements and have them not come over like mallets or lead balloons - and the question of how much is too much or not enough. i think in some ways dance has a special challenge because our ability to read nuance and ambiguity in movement can be impinged when we sit back and try and connect it to our verbal processes.. er, just a thought...bleh.
we saw Akram Khan & Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui's Zero Degrees - great movement, amazing music and sculpture by Anthony Gormley (of Newcastle Angel etc.)
however, something of the opposite danger presented itself... too long, too much disjointedness perhaps? i'd say again some great moments, but overall, a kind of lack of statement....
certainly something to ponder as we keep working
and following on Eliz's stuff about the piece on Friday and literalness...
During the piece the two performers collectively told a story about a trip one of them had taken to India where he faced up to "a different world", where the rules were not the same as at home. The story was enough, you could easily draw from it the "lessons" but then they ruined it (for me) by a bit at the end where he mused about how life was nothingness and blah blah... the kind of thing you say in 1st yr philosophy.
Again, it came to me about leaving the space for the audience to be intelligent enough to draw their own conclusions. Not spoonfeeding... but giving enough context and information for them to work with and make their own sense of stuff. Which relates back to the Forsyth work and a lot of overtly political work that seems to say, hey, did you catch that? War is bad. Hm.... maybe I should project that just in case you didn't get it... Ok, now I'm just being catty! ;-)
wow, its great to hear that you went to see this (British) piece and reviewing it here, it is like a cross-atlantic review now :)
I agree with both of you -- at least what i think you've both said, in different words -- you can't be too blatant in performance; i think that the mallets/spoonfeeding comes about in dance when the dialogue is introduced; dance is so abstract (in a way) that dialogue (way too precise) just has to be treated like bodily movement in dance. maybe the Forsythe company is so used to 'over-emoting' through the body that they don't have a good grasp of subtlety in language?? (totally ungrounded speculation)
i would love to see some Gormley work involved with dance -- we saw an exhibit of his work at the Baltic a couple of years ago and it was excellent.
huh, yeah - how literal is too literal? on the other hand, is it possible to be too obscure? i think so...
it's a really tough call - especially when you're dealing with a clash of verbal and non-verbal forms. Which i think is very interesting, but raises huge problems.... because i think not enough people think through the body. So words come in as "explainers" or, vice versa, body is used to mime the words (as in the best dancing to pop songs).
or, maybe we are not used to amplifying body and speech at the same time, or seeing each for their own strengths...there is something about the split/contrast that is fascinating and fraught with potential disaster in performance, really.... like if you suddenly decided to mime for a day, most people would have a really hard time with you...likewise, if you tried only to communicate by phone or text (ok, i guess that's entirely possible, so it's really just the miming everyone would hate..har)
hmmmmmmmmmm.............
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