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Scottish Dance Theatre - 'Moment,' 'Broken,'
March 30, 2004 --
The Place, London
A crucial argument surrounding
contemporary choreography is that of content vs. aesthetic. Along with
genres such as physical theatre and live art, some say that dance should
be used to challenge, subvert and provoke. Others argue that viewing a
dance performance should not be like figuring out a brainteaser, but rather
enjoyed for its surface value and visual quality. It is rare to find a
balance between these two peripheries, but for at least two out of the
three pieces in Scottish Dance Theatre's Spring Tour 2004 Programme, it
seems that they have done just that.
Sean Feldman's "Moment" is bursting with images of childhood.
Girls in their best silken party frocks and boys in velvet shirts and
Victorian tails as pale and as surreptitious as moonlight frolic within
the parameters of a rectangular block of light, making them seem contained
within a certain time. They play "follow my leader" and run
sunny races, whirling their arms in arcs through the air, a shape echoed
by their smooth skirts, swirling full circle as they move with vitality
and dynamic precision through games and groupings.
Fragments of sound and a scratched
record are played and re-played in staccato, keeping the dancers stuck
in the "moment." The piece moves in to a more mature, seductive
tone with tango steps creeping in to the sound of a plucky guitar and
physically close partnerships between the dancers. The development into
a deeper flow and the switch into a faster gear reveal images of moments
of realisation as well as moments in time.
The defined parameters of reality,
images of beauty and the controlling forces within society are exposed and
explored -- namely education and the media. We see what happens when you
step out of line and stray from the swaying crowd. Whilst on one side of
the stage there are two posing glamour girls representing stereotypical
images of feminine beauty and sensuality, the other "tank" of
space houses a neurotic girl in her underwear who is pulling tape tightly
around her stomach, sealing her mouth with it and painting lipstick over
the top. As she tries to cram her feet into the red stilettos discarded
by the posing girls and hobbles off stage, Velman demonstrates how people
force themselves into the barriers of the accepted and the "norm."
Interesting themes as well as visual intrigue surely makes this piece the
"food for thought" of the evening.
The emotional pull from "Broken," choreographed by Rui Horta,
fails to grab me, although the scope is visually intriguing. A film wall
of a complex web of branches is set behind a male/female duet. Both dancers
are neurotic and angular -- protruding elbows barricading the space, making
the pair distinctly un-huggable and aloof, part of the reason that the
chemistry between them is far from sparking as they move within a similarly
angular triangle of light.
Didy Veldman's "Track" opens with a bunch of rowdy student types
having a laugh in colourful costume; rounds of laughing to the sounds
of a playful wooden glockenspiel. The set comprises temporary scaffolding
structures with further malleable boundaries created by tape that is unwound
and stuck to the floor, poles, each other -- sometimes even taping themselves
into the equation. They follow and map movements with the tape then re-trace
steps and erase past lines. These flimsy barriers come to represent real
and imaginary spaces.
Edited by Lori Ibay
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