Panopticon
I’m never quite sure what we are trying to say when it comes to our use of the internet.
And I’m none the wiser after this performance.
We dance around the issues of data-sharing and personal exposure. We dally with each other’s lives and throw our own out there into web-space without thought for the consequences.
We trip the light fantastic with our innermost secrets reluctantly and willingly bared.
This is elegant, cautious, a ripple of ideas from dancer to dancer. We give and we take, we argue and hide. We watch the interplay of give and take played out as always with beauty, story and perfect timing.
We watch two reluctant lovers forced together by circumstance and unavoidable magnetism progress into companionable partnership.
This philosophic performance makes me think: do we have a choice?
Clever, thoughtful, poetic.
All photography by Sian Trenberth, Panopitcon by Tim Volleman, Set & Costume: Sophie Wheelan, Lighting: Jose Tevar , Sound Design: Benjamin Smith, Composer: Trailand Elzorth. Dancers: Elena Sgarbi & Oliver Chapman
Un
Some people just make you wish you could be someone else, have someone else’s gifts – maybe just for a day.
This is clean, smart, strong. She stands confidently alone and accepts the challenges life brings.
I am agog at the power in this dance, this dancer. She is utterly beautiful and complete.
‘Un’ by Kat Collings , Set & Costume: Megumi Okazaki, Lighting: Jose Tevar , Sound Design: Benjamin Smith , Composer: Sylvia Villa , Dancer: Julia Reider
Ecrit
To my left is a choreographer and dancer and she says of this: they fly!
And fly they do.
This piece is the reason to follow this dance company, to follow dance, to sit here in the dark and let the lights and the simplicityof the stage capture you, to let the music touch you and the movements of the dancers feed your soul.
The love in this dance makes me cry. This feels as if it has been born perfect, perfection born of two imperfect creatures in a story of passion and pain.
“Truth is, so great, that I wouldn’t like to speak, or sleep, or listen, or love. To feel myself trapped, with no fear of blood, outside time and magic, within your own fear, and your great anguish, and within the very beating of your heart. All this madness, if I asked it of you, I know, in your silence, there would be only confusion. I ask you for violence, in the nonsense, and you, you give me grace, your light and your warmth. I’d like to paint you, but there are no colors, because there are so many, in my confusion, the tangible form of my great love. ” Diego Riviera
I see this piece again and again behind closed eyes and relive it best I can.
To my right, the costumier says, however many times I see this it will not be enough. I agree.
‘Ecrit’ by Nikita Goile, Set & Costume: Erty Huang, Lighting: Jose Tevar , Sound Design: Benjamin Smith , Composer: Florencia Alen
Dancers: Nikita Goile & Cyril Durand-Gasselin
Why Are People Clapping
Because they are having fun!
Slapping, clapping, rollicking dance as a lively contrast to the soul-searching we have enjoyed before.
I find this hard on my ears and squint back at the stage, recoiling slightly at the noise. It is such a shock! The rhythm of life beats and the audience laughs and we pull faces back at the dancers’comic turns.
This feels like an exercise, an exploration – a start to something this extraordinary company of dancers will see through in its own way and I very much look forward to seeing it too.
‘Why Are People Clapping?’ by Ed Myhill,Set & Costume: Elin Steele, Lighting: Jose Tevar, Sound Design: Benjamin Smith , Dancers: Julia Reider, Kat Collings, Tim Volleman, Elena Sgarbi & Oliver Chapman
A wonderful series of pieces – I left exhausted and elated.
#altroutes18
alt-ROUTES
7 – 9 June 2018
Seen: 8 June
National Dance Company Wales
Dance & Design from Cardiff’s emerging artists
Dance House, Wales Millennium Centre
Panopticon
Choreographer – Tim Volleman
Dancers – oliver Chapman & Elena Sgarbi
Un
Choreographer – Kat collings
Dancer – Julia Reider
Ecrit
Choreographer – Nikita Goile
Dancers – Nikita goile & Cyril surand-gasselin
Why Are People Clapping
Choreographer – Ed Myhill
Dancers – Julia Reider, Kat Collings, Tim Volleman elenaSgarbi, Oliver Chapman
Helen Joy