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drinks Monday 4 August 08
Falling Angel, Rising Ape
Verdict: Dream of delight
Edinburgh - C-Venues - August 02
There's a magical event on at C, and it's, er, dance.
If that sentence doesn't scan right, and dance makes your attention
enter its sleep mode en route to the fashion/sport pages, see this delight.
And if you love dance, see it too. It has everything, and fabulous breasts,
sorry, movements.
Imagina's a group of performers who'd make Tony Blair's heart leap with its
pan-European-ness, in fact he'll likely pick them to headline the upcoming
Euro referendum. At a random sampling, they're Swedish, former-Yugoslavian,
Greek, Polish/German, Czech, British, Japanese, and there's only 8 of them.
FALLING ANGEL, RISING APE is a well-paced set of 6 pieces, forming a whole.
Each piece is separately created and directed:
BIOTIDE(E). Created and performed - Lovisa Tobieson. Sound score - Thomas Newman.
As we enter, Tobieson's a girl in white knitting a cord - perhaps umbilical. She
rises gracefully, shedding (a lot of) sand from her sleeves and trousers. As
she moves, she leaves her trail upon the sands (of time?). Departing, she drags the
cord that's extended with her increasing age - leaving just a ball to record her
existence.
IT'S MY PARTY AND I'LL DIE IF I WANT TO. Created - Andreas Constantinou. Performed
- Dagmara Bilon and Andreas Constantinou. Sound score - Tom Waits. It's
outrageously kinky. Constantinou's armed with gaffer tape, and Bilon's fairly
bursting out of her chemise (see above; well, you can't help but) and little skirt -
in a way that will have a queue of men in macs round the block to C if word gets
out (I'd forgotten to bring mine, damn). Constantinou would be handy round
Christmas-time, because he certainly knows how to wrap a parcel. Bilon likely
stays well clear of him when he's got tape in hand and that certain glint in his eye.
A PIECE OF MONOLOGUE. Created - Milos Sofrenovic. Performed - Sarah Vancaster.
Sound score - Meredith Monk. Vancaster rises with back to us, she's dressed in
black, in a man's suit. She turns, and presents a face that looks half-dead, half
like a baby's, with black mascara that gives her eyes an edgy, forboding look.
There's a nod to Samuel Beckett's Theatre of The Absurd, but if that screams like
a smoke alarm for acute boredom, Sofrenovic and Vancaster create here something mysterious
but also entertaining. What's a girl to do, given British weather, but open
an umbrella over her head? And Vancaster - what a trouper - shows no dismay when
it turns out to be full of flour.
ENCOUNTER. Created - Kitty Winter. Performed - Lovisa Tobieson and Kitty Winter.
Sound score - Yann Tiersen. Tobieson and Winter are joined by a third in this
delightful look at intimacy. Winter works a full-height and remarkably human puppet.
The puppet's in white, with a look that's part Roman senator, part angel.
Tobieson and the puppet tease at each other, imitating the other's gestures,
longing perhaps to be friends. This is a remarkable piece,
cutting straight to the subconscious. It's all that we have with
strangers, with lovers, with our children: joy in them. And the overwhelming
need for the gift of touch.
SYMPHONY FOR A SCHIZOPHRENIC EGG. Created and performed - Dagmara Bilon and
Andreas Constantinou. Sound score - Andreas Constantinou. Bilon and Constantinou
return for a highly original and disturbing look at birth and the mother-head
of creation. What a way these two superb dancers have of working together.
They resonate like the twin tines of a tuning-fork.
There's egg-laying (by Constantinou), and egg-breaking (by Bilon) in a neat
reversal of male-female roles, and the separation of two bodies that have been one.
The fine original piano score is by Constantinou.
BURNING GIRAFFE. Created - Martina Seitl. Performed (alpha order) - Dagmara Bilon,
Andreas Constantinou, Martina Seitl, Milos Sofrenovic, Sanae Tanioka, Lovisa
Tobieson, Sarah Vancaster, Kitty Winter. Sound score - 'Blood Money' by Tom Waits;
and 'Requiem for a Dream' sound track by Clint Mansell (with Paul Oakenfold
co-writer end title suite). Costume designer - Ellan Parry.
The company comes together for the headlining closing number. Having got to know
them in the earlier pieces, it's a treat to see them ensemble. This is a startling
and extremely powerful piece with glances to the insane asylums of Marat-Sade and
Ken Russell, the crysalis scene in Alien, The Day of The Triffids, and Dodgson's
Alice Through The Looking Glass. There's a baby in her amniotic sac, giants,
walls of sheets, a half-pierrot, and a range of characters that far exceed the
8 on stage. Perhaps it depicts a dream, it has the elements of a dream's landscape,
and is superbly compulsive to watch. It's a great closer too, with memorable
performances to writing that gives each performer scope for artistic
exellence.
Company credits: Producer and lighting designer - Kitty Winter. Stage Management -
Raissa Kasolowksy, Ellan Parry. Administration and marketing - Lovisa Tobieson.
Press and PR - Heather Owen. Company - Imagina Dance Theatre.
Technicals - C Venues staff.
END
John Park
reviewed Friday 16 August 02 / C Venues
Fringe Report (c) Fringe Report 2002-2008
