Friday 28 August 2015

Seven: Ballet am Rhein

Seven: Ballet am Rhein @ Edinburgh Playhouse, 20 Aug

Germany's Ballett am Rhein team up with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra to perform Martin Schläpfer’s response to Mahler’s Seventh Symphony

Review by Stephanie Green | 28 Aug 2015
Published in The Skinny Magazine.

Pointe ballet shoes, bare feet and boots sum up this contemporary ballet inspired by Mahler’s Seventh Symphony, superbly played by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and conducted by Wen-Pin Chien. Interrupted fragments of folk music, martial, or lyrical passages are echoed by the choreography: a collage of disconnected vignettes, Balanchine-inspired neoclassicism or tanztheater, in a  nocturnal dream world we cannot quite grasp.
Love duets become casually dismissive. Ugly contortions and drumming boots express abusive relationships: a male drags a female on stage with her head under his arm; others are dragged by the hair or lifted into the air with legs akimbo revealing too much crotch, albeit clothed in functional gym knickers. The males suffer too but there is something unpleasantly misogynistic in this piece, though occasionally the females fight back, usually en pointe and with hair in a bun.
Just as Mahler inserts cow horns, Schläpfer’s depressing view of humanity is undercut with silliness – dancers imitating a train or the girl underneath a tiny table (why?) but despite these moments, and extraordinary athletic dancers performing difficult choreography, its fragmentary nature is unsatisfactory and does not do justice to Mahler’s subtlety.
Only in the more cheerful Rondo is there a strong change of mood, when neoclassical dance is underpinned by the whole company in boots and long coats rushing round chairs in a circle, reminiscent of a children’s game where someone will be ‘out’. A reminder of the Holocaust, or of any outsiders in society. Finally, rather late, this stunning scene gives the whole piece depth.

Seven: Ballett am Rhein, Edinburgh Playhouse, run ended
http://eif.co.uk/seven

Thursday 20 August 2015

The Encounter - Simon McBurney of Complicite

The Encounter @ EICC, 16 Aug

An astounding, immersive show, The Encounter is performed and directed by Simon McBurney of Complicite

Review by Stephanie Green | 20 Aug 2015
Published in The Skinny.

The audience is equipped with head phones, where sound is relayed from a totem-like binaural ‘head’, so that we too are dropped into the Amazonian rainforest of Brazil. Based on Petru Popescu’s Amazon Beaming about Loren McIntyre, a National Geographic photographer captured by the Mayoruna (Cat people) and the recordings of McBurney’s own trip, we too experience a destabilizing encounter.
What is real? What is the nature of time? McBurney plays with our perception of reality with real-time performance and recordings jumping back and forth in time. He is the only person on stage but he performs many characters who inhabit our imagination while a mosquito whines at our ear, or a jaguar coughs. Sound effects are created on stage – pouring a plastic bottle to create the river, or screwed-up video tape for walking through jungle undergrowth. The voices of McIntyre and the Amazonians are intercut with McBurney’s own young son back home asking unanswerable questions, as children do, and those of scientists, philosophers and activists on how for the índios, contact with ‘whites’ often means death.
We share McIntyre's experiences; how he loses his trainers, his watch, his camera... everything that makes a 20th century person; how he enters a new sense of consciousness and learns to speak the ‘old language’, communicating through silence with the head-man; how he undergoes terrifying drug-induced hallucinations to reach another reality, the pulsing rhythm of time, and we too emerge shaken.

The EncounterEICC, 'til 23 Aug, 7:30pm (2:30pm), £32
http://www.eif.co.uk

Thursday 13 August 2015

Antigone

Antigone @ King's Theatre

Review by Stephanie Green | 13 Aug 2015
Published in The Skinny.

Can a famous film star automatically perform successfully on the stage? In the case of Juliette Binoche in Sophocles’ Antigone, sadly not. Despite the renowned Ivo van Hove's direction, and being an iconic play of enormous power, this modern dress production is hugely disappointing.
Antigone must bury her brother Polyneikes while Kreon, the king, has decreed that as a traitor, he must be left to the birds and dogs: obedience to the state or to humane values, a moral conflict that resonates to this day. It needs exceptional actors. Binoche lacks gravitas. Her voice is thin. She gabbles or is inaudible. Later she shouts, mistakenly thinking that conveys emotion. The only time she expresses pathos is when she silently washes her brother’s corpse.
The low-key tone counterbalances the gruesome plot, and allows some pleasing comedy from Obi Abili, but too often makes for impassive acting. The text translated by US poet Anne Carson is banal (‘Why are you so nasty?’). Thank goodness for Patrick O’Kane who is a credible, cynical Kreon, though often inaudible. Only Finbar Lynch as Teiresias is superb and other parts are strong: Kathryn Pogson as Eurydike and Kirsty Bushell as Ismene.
The simplicity of Jan Versweyveld’s bare set dominated by a vast sun is perfect for such a stark play but the light is so glaring it casts the actors’ faces into shade. Projections on the back wall of deserts are effective but others are distracting or kitsch. And why the soundtrack? It’s irritating, and the track at the end ludicrous.

Antigone, Kings Theatre, 'til 22 Aug 7.30pm (except Mondays)
Sat 15 and 22 Aug 2.30pm Prices vary.
Antigone, Kings Theatre, 'til 22 Aug 7.30pm (except Mondays) Sat 15 and 22nd Aug 2.30pm Prices vary. http://eif.co.uk/antigone

Tuesday 11 August 2015

Sylvie Guillem: Life in Progress

Sylvie Guillem: Life in Progress @ Festival Theatre

Review by Stephanie Green | 11 Aug 2015
Published in The Skinny magazine.
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  • Sylvie Guillem
Sylvie Guillem: Life in Progress, EIF


Subtle, intelligent, playful and moving, Life in Progress exemplifies Sylvie Guillem’s attitude through the 39 years of her dance career: balancing fun and risk, continuing to search for new possibilities, melding early classical training and moving to contemporary dance. The choreographers and co-dancers chosen here have all been important in her life and exemplify this approach. In fact, each piece feels as if we are experiencing the process of it being made.
Kathak-trained Akram Khan’s technêis introspective and compelling, involving many ground-based restless contortions superbly responsive to the Indian rhythms of the percussion.
Duo2015 is choreographed by William Forsythe, who strongly influenced Guillem’s development. Performed by Brigel Gjoka and Riley Watts, it is a tongue-in-cheek piece about male competitiveness which becomes increasingly technically demanding.
Russell Maliphant’s Here & After is a sinuous and elegiac duet with Emanuela Montanari (whom Guillem has produced in the past) set to Andy Cowton’s haunting music and impressive lighting by Michael Hulls, which encloses the dancers, patterning the stage with squares from which they dance in and out.
The delightful Bye, choreographed by Mats Ek to Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in C minor, Op 111, features Guillem in plaits and a cardie – herself as a little girl, perhaps a Pippi Longstocking – dancing awkwardly then flinging off her shoes, free to find herself. An intriguing light effect, a lit door she slips in through and later leaves to join others, is a wonderful symbol of her continual search for new life.

Sylvie Guillem: A Life in Progress, Festival Theatre, run ended
Sylvie Guillem - A Life in Progress, Festival Theatre, run endedhttp://www.eif.co.uk/guillem

Monday 10 August 2015

The Best of Dance Base, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, 2015



The Best of Dance Base

Stephanie Green and Mark Harding | 10 Aug 2015   Published in The Skinny Magazine online.

Dance Base is the place to be if you want to know what’s going on in the contemporary dance world. As ever, artistic director Morag Deyes’ extraordinarily varied programme continues to enthral, surprise and at times, shake you to the core.
The exquisite Ink of Innocence [★★★★☆] is a highlight of Dance Base’s offerings, shown as part of the Special Edition double bill. Choreographed by Eve Mutso, the interaction between a dancer in white with others in black is fluid, imaginative and tightly controlled. More impressively, this piece is expressive in a way not often achieved by classically trained companies. But why the ropes? Their potential is unexplored. 1 to 10  [★★★★☆], literally playing on numbers, choreographed by Jamiel Laurence was witty and sharp, a perfect foil. SG
Exciting new companies E Motion and Tamsyn Russell burst onto the scene with explosive energy earlier in the year.  E Motion, as the company name suggests, presents Between Us [★★★★☆], a piece full of emotion and choreographed by Emma Snellgrove. Charting female relationships and break-ups, it is intense but with a surprising, delightful sense of humour, if at times rambling.  Atzi Muramatsu’s live cello accompaniment is a superb call and response to the choreography. The athletic Hunting Dust [★★★☆☆] is equally full of joy and humour, exploring gender issues and competitiveness but did not seem to know how to end. SG
Sleazy come-on glances of dancers greet the audience. Gaze of the Kavaluan [★★★★☆] by the Taiwanese Tjimur Dance Theatre should be x-rated. Superbly danced, it is a raw protest against the restrictive mores of traditional society. Sex, not love, is seen as the antidote. The brooding symbol of virginity entrapped in voluminous black veil is disturbing, especially when she almost chokes on her scream. The dancers are feral, especially when smelling each other’s sexuality – a particularly affective moment is when the Virgin’s lilies hang from their lips. SG
Nijinsky’s Last Jump [★★★★☆] by Company Chordelia is devastating, a play/dance exploring Nijinsky’s schizophrenia and the years of cruel treatment he endured in asylums. Both dancer Darren Brownlie and actor James Bryce playing Njinsky’s younger and older selves are moving. There are some wonderful lines (‘You just go up and pause a little up there’) but The Skinny was a bit disappointed that dance does not feature more prominently – however, there is a wonderful depiction and development of poses from the photographs of Nijinsky as a faun and evocative use of excerpts of the music he danced to, from Debussy to Stravinsky. SG
Al Seed in Oog [★★★★☆] is a commanding solo presence. Backed by terrific lighting and soundtrack, he plays a soldier who has crossed the edge of mental breakdown. Transforming from damaged human, eyes grow from pinpricks to saucers, mouth twists from joker to black tunnel, a war machine with no trace of humanity left – or is there? Exemplary physical theatre, and Alex Rigg’s overcoat is a character in its own right.  MH
Fishamble’s Underneath [★★★★★] is billed as a one-man ‘play’ but this does not evoke the sheer brilliance of this tour de force: Pat Kinevane is both ghoul and charming Irish raconteur in the pub, telling a sad tale of a young girl’s endurance of bullying for her ‘disability’ (scarred by lightning) with amazing changes of mood, from emotionally shocking scenes to flashes of humour, an array of characters (including a house-hunting couple and Galapagos, the slowest man ever), and themes ranging from Lourdes to Downton Abbey. No dance, some physical theatre: it is sure to be the talk of the festival. MH
And why not savour a meditative moment with Green Tea and Zen Baka first thing?

Nijinsky's Last JumpDance Base, 'til 23 Aug, 2pm, £10/£8
Between Us + Hunting Dust, Dance Base, 'til 16 Aug, 3:30, £10/£8
Special Edition 2015, Dance Base, 'til 23 Aug, 5pm, £10/8
Taiwan Season: Gaze of the Kavaluan, Dance Base, 'til 30 Aug, 6:30pm, £10/£8
Underneath, Dance Base, 'til 30 Aug, 7:30pm, £10/£8
Oog, Dance Base, 'til 23 Aug, 9:30pm, £10/£8