Hope for change; Clear Tears / Troubled Waters

Company Thor – Thierry Smits

Crisis in the West and climate changes, a choreographers vision. Melancholy is the dominant feeling in the beginning of the piece but optimism stays with you when you leave.

A performance about social engagement, aesthetic delight and hope for more room to breathe, that is what Clear Tears / Troubled Waters is about.

I watched the première of this performance on the 8^th of January 2013 in the Hallen van Schaarbeek in Brussels. Clear Tears / Troubled Waters is choreographed by Thierry Smits for his company Thor, the music for this piece was made by the group Tuxedomoon.

Poles hanging from the ceiling, a black backdrop and 7 gasping dancers in simple black costumes, this was the start of the piece. But soon the dancers would develop their movements into a fluent and strong dance, working with each other and around the poles.

The poles were a big contribution to the piece, they had lights in them at the sides which gave the room a very special atmosphere. The poles were the center of the piece while they were hanging there, the dancers seemed hypnotized by the lights and when the poles were getting hoist into the ceiling they went into a very powerful group dance with intertwined duets around and under the poles until they were completely gone.

 The music and the dance were really connected to each other and fit together perfect, duets, solo’s and group work were created in the dance as well as in the music. 

This also helped to bring out the beautiful, strong group feeling even more.

Throughout the performance the dancers would change their black shirts into a dark, but bright, blue one. From the moment they did this their dance got less melancholic and became more hopeful and optimistic. They started repeating phrases from earlier in the performance but there was more lightness in their movements, they stayed together as a group and really seemed to be carried through everything by the music. 

If this wouldn’t have happened I think I will have left the room with much more of a dreary feeling, but the energy that the dancers gave of pierced through the nostalgia and gave me a positive vibe to end the performance with.

If you could find a way to travel back in time then I would sincerely recommend you to watch this performance, it addressed the topic in a different and interesting way and was certainly worth watching. It might even make you think and change your mind about how we treat this problem.

In the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes

As one's said by the king of pop art, Andy Warhol, in the future everyone will have his 15 minutes of fame. Based on this verdict Felix Landerer created his piece 15 minutes or less. A piece in which the dancers all try to have their moments of fame, attempting to be the chosen one. And this all performed in the beautiful and organic movement qualities as we are used to of Felix Landerer.

This piece 15 minutes or less, a creation by Felix Landerer, is performed by the Scapino Ballet. It's a piece which is part of a program called Icons, which I saw in Nijmegen the 8 of november. It's all about having your minutes of fame in a era of media, in which everyone can have his minutes of fame. But because of this, it's almost impossible to be a Icon for a longer period of time. Fame can simply be created by a group of people, but a group of people can also make you a nobody again.

The dancers danced to music from Christoff Littman, which perfectly suited the atmosphere of the dance, the inner desire to have your minutes of fame. However, the voice-over, most of the time not able to follow, was superfluous.  Very remarkable were the dancers' costumes. The dancers were completely dressed up in red costumes. This color is usually very outstanding, however when the whole group is wearing red, the colour isn't that outstanding anymore. This is the reason why the dancers searched for other ways to be outstanding.

One of those ways for the dancers to be outstanding is doing a solo. According to Andy Warhol, everyone would have his 15 minutes of fame. However, in this piece not everyone had this moment of fame, luckily. This because after a while the solo's became a bit boring to look at.
Choreographically seen most interesting to watch, is the organic movement quality created by Felix Landerer. It shows a fluid stream of movement, rising up in the air and organically melting into the floor again. This is very recognizable in Landerer's work. It almost seems like the dancers' bodies are made out of liquid and can easily melt and rise up from the floor. And amazingly enough, all the dancers executed the choreography very well.

Although there were a couple of downsides on the choreography of this piece, it still is very worthwhile to go and see it. The way the dancers move and the complex choreography are very pleasant to watch at. Also this piece is one of the three choreographies in the program Icons performed by the Scapino Ballet. All of them together form a great and beautiful evening filling performance!

War in a Nutshell; No Longer Silent, Robert Battle

When the Introdans’ performance “Oorlog en Vrede” (War and Peace) was being performed in the theatres, a lot of people went for the second piece “De Groene Tafel” from the German choreographer Kurt Jooss. This nearly 83 year old piece can only be performed if everything, from the steps to the light settings, is exactly the same as when the piece had its premier in 1932 and this is just one of the reasons why this is an extraordinary piece. But the first piece on the program, ”No Longer Silent” by the American choreographer Robert Battle was at least as interesting and, to my personnel opinion, more impressive.

The stage of the big theatre of The Maaspoort (Venlo) was on November the 6th 2013 filled with nearly 20 dancers dressed in a relatively simple, dark grey costume with behind them the stage horizon in a sepia or grey color. It almost occurred like a moving photograph. And even though the dancers were not dressed in striped clothing, there were several similarities between this setting and pictures of the concentration camps. Not by accident of course, as the choreographer stated that he had been very inspired by these pictures. It seemed like, with the changing of the horizon from grey to purple and red,  Battle tried to bring the pictures out of the history books back to life.

As usually with Introdans, the piece was very well rehearsed and was executed quite neatly. The movements were synchronously and very nicely timed with the music, which was from the Czech composer Erwin Schulhoff. The choice for this music was not only based on the music itself. During the Second World War Schulhoff’s music was banished from Germany because the composer was Jewish and sympathized with communism. Eventually he was deported and died in a concentration camp from Tuberculosis. This really shows how Battle used symbolic and adds historical layers to the piece which makes it for the informed viewer even more interesting.

Even the movements were telling a clear story without becoming too tawdry. The running with the hand palms facing front, for example, looked like a sign of surrender. Or the dancers hitting an invisible ceiling trying to escape from something. Although Battle used a lot of canons, which is risky since they are a bit predictable, the piece did not become boring. By giving the canon a slightly different twist every now and then, the viewer remained interested. Also the bench which was in the back of the stage was used in various different ways to make the canons unpredictable.  By lifting half of it up to make it a oblique line on the back ground for example.

After all this amazing piece is definitely worth going to the theatre for. It is definitely a good choice for the “Oorlog en Vrede” program. It fits of course with the theme but it is also very different from The Green Table. Therefore these two pieces are not in competition with each other. They exist next to each other and show two very different but both interesting views on War.