Concept, Choreography:
Giulio D'Anna
produced by Dansateliers Rotterdam, Versiliadanza and Amsterdamse Hogeschool voor de Kunsten
Melkweg Theater Amsterdam, 2nd of November, 2013
Performed and co-created by students of the AHK and freelancing dancers, 5 women and 3 men
The music was composed by Sieger Balfon and Mees Borgmann and also co-created as well as co-produced by the dancers.
Giulio D'Anna explores the challenges and failures of relationships in his piece 'OOOOOOOO'. Love relationships, relationships between family members and relationships between friends.
The dancers wear just underwear and the stage is pretty empty except from a piano in the back corner on the right. They tell each other and the audience very personal stories from their lives. One girl from Ukraine for example tells about her stepfather being an alcoholic and her experiences with that as a child. Another girl tells about herself falling deep in love with a guy and how the love slowly disappeared between them. One guy talks about the memories he has with someone he had a strong connection with, a good friend or a parent, imagining that person standing in front of him.
But besides sharing really personal yet recognizable (for the spectator) memories with the audience, all performers also sing about themselves and relationships. Again love as well as friendship. They for instance start with a group song about love and break ups which is followed up by several songs during the performance. One is about friendship sung only by one girl. Whilst singing she follows a path that the others create with their bodies in a circle around the stage. Another song is again about feelings. They start singing it but at one point they just continue humming the melody. At that point at a screen on the back wall some kind of statistics are projected. They are all about personal and even intimate facts about the performers. Some funny, some neutral and some sad. It seems like they had to fill in a questionnaire during the creation process and through that these statistics came up.
The movement sequences during the piece are also to be mentioned. Though actual movement is not the biggest part of the performance it is incredibly physical and intense. In one sequence, in 3 duets, one person tries to hug the opposite person that in contrast tries to escape really hard. Or another duet where they try to stay in contact all the time and going to really unusual physical places. It all creates and supports the sense of discovering relationships from a different angle.
It is very touching and easy to identify with what is presented on stage. As it is so close to the dancer’s lives it automatically becomes close to the spectators’ lives because we are all humans. So everyone in the audience is able to at least identify with something if not even everything. Espacially the facts that are projected to the screen make it easy to connect to the happenings on stage.
It was by far one of the best and most moving performances I have seen lately. I was really engaged just in observing what they were doing and following their tracks. Sometimes I even felt like joining them because it was so energizing and revealing in a way that also I wanted to get rid of my b alast and just talk to someone. It definetely made me aware of the fact that not all relationships are like media and society want to tell us. I really had the fealing 'OOOOOOOO' told the truth about many relationships. I can only recommend to go and see this performance to everybody, because I think it is adressing every single one of us
Review written by Caspar Leonard Knops, ArtEZ DM1, caspar.knops@live.de
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