A telephone call with no beginning and no end

At what moment does a performance start? Is it when the audience is getting quiet and the lights are turning off? Not with the choreographers Guy Weizman and Roni Haver "Club Guy & Roni".

As I enter the Schouwburg of Utrecht on the 22nd of January, “My Private Odyssey” has already started even if I am one of the first spectators. It is all about the journey of Odysseus and this journey begins with a women with a flute on stage. The longer I sit on my seat and wait, the more do I realize that there are more people on stage than I thought.

Everything is red, everything has power and everything is moving. The dancers which are all dressed in red costumes are presenting the maximum of flexibility and physical strength that can be possible. It is amazing what they can do but it would be really impressive if I would only see the dancers. 

But the stage seems to move as well and swallow up the dancers. I don’t really notice when performers are entering or leaving the stage.  

The light-design plays a big role. On the right and the left side of the stage there is a mobile of tiles hanging down from the ceiling. On these tiles they project video patterns and if dancers are on stage they become part of these lights. That means also that you can not always see them which is a pity because it confuses the audience and they can not see what they want to see.

It takes a while to figure out how many dancers there are.

At some point I find out that there are nine dancers and they are doing a great job. It is a very professional level and the choreography shows what they can. From turns to jumps to high legs to small detailed movements. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of material. There are many movements which are repeated and some constellations are very predictable. There is no surprise in the choreography. It is kind of obvious what comes next. It doesn’t bother me as it would usually because there is not the possibility to concentrate only on the dance.

The musicians are really integrated in the performance since they are always present. For a long time I don’t notice that the person with that overall, which covers also her face, is the pianist. The flutist is playing the flute on the shoulders of a dancer or sitting on the side of the stage and tinkers paper boats. It seems as if the violinist has a more important role. If she is not in the middle of the stage playing the violin and the drums at the same time, we can see her on a small television on the left front corner of the stage just staring at us.

Is she the woman who is on the other side of the phone? This question arises because on the right side there is this man on television who is talking on the phone and smoking during the whole performance. It is a telephone call that never ends. Often we can hear what he says.

All of this raises a lot of questions. Too many for my taste because I am distracted from the power of every small detail. It seems as if Weizman and Haver want to use every possibility. Special light, video projections, television with and without sound, live music, playback music, dancers on stage, dancers as part of the audience, dancers screaming or talking into microphones, a toy dog, the imagination of shipping on a towel.

It is a nice show to enjoy the evening. In my opinion it is necessary to be really relaxed to handle it and maybe you should see it more than once to really understand what is happening on stage. You will always miss something in this performance because it is not possible to see everything that is going on. Different people see a totally different performance.

Dance: Company Club Guy & Roni in co-production with the company tanzmainz

Music Composition: David Dramm and Tomoko Mukaiyama

Live music: Tomoko Mukaiyama (pianist), Monica Germino (violinist), Anne La Berge (flutist)

Costumes: Slavna Martinovic

See more: http://www.clubguyandroni.nl/

Carmina Burana

Director and choreographer: Mauro Astolfi

Spellbound Dance Company

Music: Carl Orff, A. Vivaldi, V. Caracciolo

 

 

 

Less on stage to describe the avidity of wishing more in the life

 

    Carmina Burana is exactly a manuscript written in 1230 by two different scribes in an early gothic minuscule and most of them are accompanied by music.  

Between 1935 and 1936, German composer Carl Orff composed music, also called Carmina Burana, for 24 of the poems. From all this inducements Mauro Astolfi decided to create a piece of course also using parts of the music created by Orff. 

Well organized, beautiful movements, great dancers and a piece full of meanings.

The first time that I heard about this piece I thought that was about a boring and overused subject: the moral of the religion and the struggle in the human between be respectful and pure and live a completely full life, without regrets because anything was not tried.

 The title had not so much appeal on me but led me discover something new. I looked up for the meaning and I discover that was about how to live all the pleasures of life, try everything that maybe it's not the best thing to do but seem to be the most interesting and enjoyable one.

 

   I saw this performance the night of the 27^th of July in Marina di Massa in Tuscany.









What caught me the most was the atmosphere on stage;dark and medieval, little ornamentation in the

costumes and in the scenography to highlights

the bodies and the movements of the dancers.   

The colors and the objects that were used were all neutral and simple.

Every object in scene was used with intention and with a specific meaning. The big wardrobe seemed to take part in the choreography and it was used with a great skill. The dancers were moving in and out of the compartments, hidden in them, hanging out and jumping from one to another one.

 

   Of course I’ll suggest seeing this choreography but the audience need to keep in mind that the company wants to show the dark and corrupt side of the population on that time. The movements and the phrases danced are fun and playful. The piece is concentrate on showing the themes of: love, mockery and moral, drinking and games. A relevant aspect is the strong synchrony and coordination between the dancers. A lot of transitions and lifting seemed so enjoyable and easy; perfectly connected with the mood on which the piece is based. If you are interested in the Medieval period maybe you could find this piece suggestive or maybe only spend a couple of hours laughing and realizing in how many ways a wardrobe or a table could be used.

http://vimeo.com/34343069 (video from Spellbound dance Company, Carmina Burana)

 

   The explosive energy of the dancers is the most relevant aspect, they are pulling the spectators in the dance and I the atmosphere around this composition. I think that this work could let everyone understand a bit more about that era in an artistic way as a piece of dance is. I recommend everyone to see Carmina Burana and maybe think about our social situation right now and compare it with the one represented in the dance piece.

 

   The piece is surprising also because in this moment the dance compositions are going too far from being only bodies, emotions, movements and relations between these aspects.

Carmina Burana is the perfect example of dance that doesn’t need more than itself to be complete. I prefer when the stage is empty and my attention is grabbed by the choreography and not by the costumes.

If you like to enjoy a piece of real dance and not a generic performance this is what was made for you.

 

Mauro Astolfi and the Spellbound Dance Company did a pleasant and catching job but of course the material presented was a bit overused and almost the same during all the time, it’s good sometimes to recognize the style of the choreographer but sometimes is good also departing from the usual schemes or “get out of the comfortable box” or in this case it’s more appropriate to say from the wardrobe. 

http://www.spellboundance.com/works/produzioni/carmina-burana

CLUB GUY & RONI / TANZMAINZ

MY PRIVATE ODYSSEY

by

Guy Weizman and Roni Haver

Music composition

David Dramm and Tomoko Mukaiyama

Text

Ko van den Bosh

Dramaturgy

Veerle van Overloop

3/5 stars

The dance company Club Guy & Roni in co-production with German company tanzmainz presented on Thursday 22.1.2015 in theatre Stadsschouwburg in Utrecht “My private Odyssey”.

The dance performance “My private Odyssey” sounds a bit as a historical reconstruction of Homer. With this kind of expectation the watcher is going to be surprised. I am glad that it was a current processing of Homer and not a historical reconstruction. It was perform very well, however I left the theatre with mixed thoughts and it didn’t touch me personally as I expected.

Choreographers Guy Weizman and Roni Haver brought the essence and inspiration of Homer’s Odyssey and transferred it to the present issues. In this deal it was possible to see a dancers and musicians on stage in cooperation. The musicians and their live music and live present on the stage increased even more the dynamic of this performance. In fact one of the musician had a role more as a performer. This special role was quite solo performance between dancers and musicians and through this character choreographers created a connection which made undivided piece from it. The text which was participating a plot of the piece and spoken by a man presented in television, in the first moment could be seen that it doesn’t fit to the performance that the text is more about philosophic questions with unclear words. But it became a little guidance for the performers as well as for the audience.

How the title of performance says “My private Odyssey”, it means that each of the performers have their own private Odyssey. They have their own approach, the way how to deal with the returning back home and time of absence. And it is whole performance about – journey.

The performance included beautiful symbols as well. A paper boats are as symbols of journey and travelling. A lot of varieties of the fully red costumes are as symbol of the long hard bloody Trojan War. The viewer has to pay so much attention what is happening on the stage, out of the stage, what the projection shows and what the speaker says. Unfortunately it is possible to get lost in the piece.

As said, it was beautifully perform but I got lost from so much happening on stage and that might be a reason why it didn’t get to me personally and I left the theatre with mixed feelings.

Maybe it can be a one of choreographic goal to confuse the audience and focus them to think about private Odyssey. What gives to the piece direct approach and connection with society today. Because “COMING BACK IS NOT THE SAME AS STAYING” someone wrote.