Tag Archives: Helen Joy

Dance

Review: The Green House / Profundis by Helen Joy

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I have seen Profundis before and I loved it. I described it as a Kandinsky come to life. Colourful, clever, witty and thoughtful: it is a kaleidoscopic trip into the nature of things. This time, it is slicker, clearer, funnier, more confident in its story-telling, more engaged with its audience. It is less distracted and even more enjoyable. I feel that the dancers are actively seeking our attention and allowing us to show our shock, confusion and joy. It is a delight. I love it still.
Now, The Green House is a difficult thing. Definitely verdant. As a dancer sitting beside me said, dance makes you feel emotions you didn’t know you had. This is an uncomfortable piece. I cannot take my eyes off the green dancer rolling then scrubbing his green apples against his green skirt, picking them up, putting them down, in the bowl, in the sideboard, in the bowl. He is on the furniture, scrubbing his eyes, picked up, put down, on the floor. Hard stuff this.
You see, I got this wrong. I thought it was The Green Room. This made sense of the ON AIR sign and the APPLAUSE. The waiting around to be called. The back of another room on show. The green. I was wrong.
The Green House. Hot, confining, controlling, use the windows, the door, keep it in, shut it out. It is a dance of all of these things. It is disturbing, beautiful, green. There is just enough lightness, there are just enough laughs.
The group pieces are, as always, exquisitely choreographed. Painfully perfect. I would watch this again and again as they go round and round in their green world. I can’t bear it and I can’t leave it alone.
The solos are dervishly wild and tight and someone says to me, how do they learn this, how can they repeat something that looks so improvised, so in the moment, so free? I have no idea.
I reel from this. 43 minutes of green gilded anguish and heartache. I am going to see this again. And again.

 
Profundis
Creative director: Roy Assaf
The Green House
Creative director: Caroline Finn

Dancers:

Josef Perou
Camille Giraudeau
Matteo Marfoglia
Àngela Boix Duran
Elena Thomas
Ed Myhill
Franklyn Lee
Alexandra Pholien
Oliver Champman
 
 Seen: 29th April, 2017
Where: Sherman Theatre, Cardiff
For tour dates and more information:
http://www.ndcwales.co.uk/en/what-s-on/spring-tour-2017/
Free to attend but please book a space – email megan@ndcwales.co.uk for more info.
 …………………………………………………………………………………
To support the National Dance Company Wales, please consider their new Lift Lifft scheme at http://www.ndcwales.co.uk/en/about/support-us/individual-giving/

Opera & classical

Review: Lakme, Swansea City Opera at Sherman Theatre, Cardiff

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out of 5 stars (4 / 5)
Absolutely beautiful – the colours of India, the sentiments of its time, the tragedy of love over birth – exquisite.
It makes me cry. I have loved the music from this rarely performed opera for years and years. It is absolutely beautiful. And the characters are all visually believable – both leads are young and lovely looking, their voices ardent as their passion. No one is miscast, no one is out of place.
It is as gentle and as curiously English as a Wildean play but with the underlying expectation of tragedy teasing us along the way. It is Madam Butterfly meets Passage to India. I wonder whether I may feel less or more affected were it sung in the original French and conclude a handsome, manly colonialist colliding with a hidden jewel of a local lass will sound the same in any language where it is sung with conviction.
The clash of backgrounds, religions, family and commitments is very predictable and the terrible messy tragedy of it all plays out predictably too. Delibes opera is based on Pavie’s story. But this is a predictable tale prettily told, beautifully visualised and fabulously well sung.
The Flower Duet between Lakme and Mallika is exquisite, Lakme’s Bell Song heart-achingly lovely with the sopranos comfortably balanced by the tenor of Gerald and the bass-baritone of Nilakantha.

The set feels a little clumsy initially but its simplicity allows us to concentrate on the opera and enjoy the music, the period costumes and the sublime singing. How lovely it is to revel in Lakme performed as it might have been at the turn of the last century.  
But yet again, I leave a performance wishing I could take it home with me somehow – I want to listen to it all again and again and I can’t – I want to take Lakme home with me, fill my house with her voice, send it out into the darkness of the night so others can hear her, feel her hope and her sorrow, scent the flowers in her garden, scream at her not to take the poisonous datura…
I am left bereft.
 Beautiful
 
 
Helen Joy for Get the Chance, 3rd Act Critics.
 
7 March, 7.30pm

Prices

£15 -22
Concessions: £2 off
Under 25s: Half price

More information

By Léo Delibes
Director Brendan Wheatley
Pre-show talk: 6.15pm
Running time: 135 minutes (20 minutes interval)
http://www.swanseacityopera.com/productions/lakme/
Tour dates: http://www.swanseacityopera.com/productions/lakme/

 

Dance

Review: Youth Dance Night at NDCWales by Helen Joy

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NDCW Youth
Right, this is a hard one; I have thought long and hard about this review.
My conclusion is this: I am not here to comment on any of the pieces critically, I am here to congratulate and celebrate everyone involved in creating beautiful dance through giving all these extraordinary young people the chance to dance.
Every dance has a message for us and in essence I think it is this:
“Listen to us, we may be young and we may seem to have so little experience next to you, the big grown-up, but we have a voice and we feel and we want you to hear us and respond. Our need to express ourselves and to be understood is as great as yours and we will be heard, we will use clothes and colour and tears and anger; we will use movement and action; we will use dance.”
Each piece is so different, working so carefully with the ages of the dancers, their abilities and their stories. Some dancers have that special something – you can already see it, something in the way they look straight at you, something in the way they love the connection between their bodies and their minds, something just special. Every dancer in front of us performs as a professional – confident, charming, athletic and poised. Confident enough to use humour and we in the audience are impressed and laugh with them.
They dance of war and remembrance, of love and loss, of action and inaction, of communication and self.
I have no warm personal association with this – I was once in the wrong queue at junior school and accidentally arrived in the ballet class, surrounded by pink leotards and birds in cages. I was about 6. I can still feel the horror of it.
Yet, here I am wishing and wishing I had had the gumption these young people have and to have stayed in that class; wishing I had that gumption now too. What amazing young people they are, what remarkable people they will remain and in part because of this opportunity they have the gumption to take, to value and to work at – for none of this comes easy, I am sure.
I am sitting next to Luke, a dance teacher, and we discuss what makes the difference between the Associates’ piece and everyone else’s. There is something about the last piece which is more polished than the others, slicker somehow. Time is partly the answer – these dancers have been selected and given the time to train in a way the others do not have.
This suggests to me that it is time that we all must have to perfect what we do – all these young dancers deserve our support to give them the opportunities and the time they need to grow into the adults who will make our world more than just a little better.
To support ETC, Fantasy Feet, Rubicon and the NDCW, please see the links below.
Every young person should have the chance to dance, please help them to get that chance.
 
Helen Joy for Get the Chance, 3rd Act Critics.
 Curator:  Caroline Finn, NDCW Artistic Director
Showcasing:
ETC Youth Dance
Fantasy Feet (2 x pieces within their 12 minute slot)
Rubicon (Urban Flagship Group)
Joon Youth Dance Company
National Dance Company Wales Associates
Seen: 26 February, 2017
 Where: Dance House, WMC, Cardiff
Tickets: £10 | Concessions £7
 Find Youth Dance at:
Fantasy Feet, Merthyr Tydfil
http://www.fantasyfeetdance.co.uk/
 
Rubicon Dance, Adamsdown, Cardiff
http://www.rubicondance.co.uk/
 
Joon Dance, Solva, Pembrokeshire
https://www.facebook.com/JoonDance/
 
ETC Youth Dance
https://twitter.com/etcdance
  
NDCWales, Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff
http://www.ndcwales.co.uk/en/get-involved/dance/associates-age-14-19/
 
To support National Dance Company Wales, please consider their new Lift Lifft scheme at http://www.ndcwales.co.uk/en/about/support-us/individual-giving/
 
 

Art, Dance

F.E.A.R. by Mr & Mrs Clark, a review by Helen Joy

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F.E.A.R.

An autobiographical tour of the constructed fear that society, religion and family place onto young shoulders.

Mr & Mrs Clark
There is someone in front of me who is bored, who doesn’t like it. There is much loud huffing and shrugging. But as far as I can tell, everyone else is in thrall to this captivating performance. Most of us are about the same age as Mr Clark and he is describing us. To a tee.
These are our fears too. Nostalgia and angst. Nuclear war and homemade bunkers. Overhead cables and safety belts. Clunk click. Superman y-fronts and God.
Being watched, getting a proper job, having sex, getting AIDS, getting a girl pregnant, not having children, having a mortgage, taking drugs and dancing. Hair, too much in the ears, too little on the head. Farting. Weeing. Keeping it in. Keeping it up.
God, this is so uncomfortable, so perfectly awkward as we confront the identities of our public information inspired youth and our middle age of worry.
It is inclusive – we want to bop about with him on his dance floor, we don’t want to admit to being the 1 in 3 who voted to keep immigrants out, we want to relax into our group hug. We remember terrorism then and now, we remember war, then and now. Why would you want to join the army? Get a proper job. Put your hand up if you have taken an AIDS test.
We all hide in our masks – our crocodile facade, we feel responsible for everything bad in the world and wonder constantly how we are still here, how we didn’t catch diseases from loo seats and get run over by trains. But we are being watched by God, by Jesus, by cameras, by the internet. Brilliant.
This is brilliant. It is funny, challenging, difficult, joyous, hard viewing. Mr C’s eye contact is hard to return. We feel guilty, the collective conscience of the ‘70s.
FEAR. And the really clever bit is its accessibility. Signed and spoken as part of the production, not something outside of it. This is most properly inclusive and even better for it.
Maybe we have learned something after all. It is these children who became the adults who changed our social makeup, who challenged the divisions between sexuality and race and class and ability, who invited everyone to join in, who broke the boundaries we inherited.
Perhaps FEAR is not always such a bad thing. I wonder what that man in front of me was really feeling.
 
4 stars
 

Project Details

Directed by: Agnieszka Blonska Performed by Gareth Clarkcroc
 

Theatre

Helen Joy, I am a 3rd Act Critic because……..

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Get the Chance works to support a diverse range of members of the public to access and respond to sport and cultural provision . 3rd Act Critic Helen Joy gives a personal response in the video and article below on her reasons for being a member of our team.


Hi ….. can you give our readers some background information on yourself please?
Crikey, here goes: after first degree in Geography and politics aeons ago, was self-employed as a graphic designer and printer in Cardiff. This went wrong. Very wrong. After a bankruptcy and divorce and the completion of Foundation Arts and Design, I then joined a contact centre answering calls for National Rail Enquiries and ended up working for this international contracts organisation for 12 years, eventually leading their off-shoring programme to India.
Some time later and for reasons various, I returned to South Wales, took a Masters in Fine Art at Cardiff Met Uni and started keeping pigs.
So what got you interested in the arts ?
Nothing got me interested in the Arts – I was always drawing, making and painting for as long as I can remember. But, like many of us, I followed other people’s dreams and not my own for much of my life. I dipped in and out of the Arts at points but it is only now that I feel able to justify spending so much more time as a fine artist, writer and illustrator. I also work as an artist-facilitator, specialising in art classes for older people.
How did you get involved with 3rd Act Critics
Through a community arts project run by A3, I met Guy O’Donnell and saw his work on encouraging young and old to become critics and reviewers in Wales, fulfilling a national need. This opportunity to start pulling together the skills I had acquired over the years with my love of all things arty was too good to miss.
It has given me the confidence to produce articles on smallholding, arts and life in general for publication. Through this, in part, I have had invitations to speak at events, collaborate on books and exhibit my own drawings.

Helen participating in a playwriting workshop at the Wales Millennium Centre

Get the Chance works to support a diverse range of members of the public to access cultural provision . You as a 3rd Act Critic are one of the groups Get the Chance supports. Are you aware of any barriers to equality and diversity for either Welsh or Wales based critics?
I think that it is hard to break in to the Arts when older; and also as a Welsh person who doesn’t speak Welsh. Language can be used to exclude and deter. I also think that assumptions are made about people who appear to be privileged in some way and they too are disadvantaged. Prejudice is subtle.
 If you were able to fund an area of the arts in Wales what would this be and why?
Older women. We are often treated as a bit of a joke, we seem to have comfortable lives and seen to have had our chances; we are the invisible glue of local communities, giving our time and expertise with humour and hope but with little acknowledgement or reward. It is assumed that we have incomes, partners and that we are in the Arts as a hobby, for play. We are the ones who will develop the young, mentor the adult and encourage the old. We do not qualify for much by way of support and yet we keep it all going.
What excites you about the arts in Wales? 
There is a lot going on; at last craft is seen as having a value almost on par with fine art. Ditto participatory and community art.
What was the last really great thing that you experienced that you would like to share with our readers? 
Training to produce radio where I hope to interview people about their lives, all great and none small.
Check out 3rd Act Critic Helen Joy’s reviews for Get the Chance at the link below
getthechance.wales/?s=helen+joy
 
 
 
 

Art, Dance, Music, Theatre

Review: Babulus, Gwyn Emberton and ilDance by Helen Joy

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Babulus
4 Stars
Tower of Babel, says a friend next to me.
 Communication, that’s what it’s about, she says, all the different ways of communicating.
 I’m not sure about the bear, I find the bear creepy. Oh, she says, I like the bear.
Did you like the dance as a whole? Oh yes, mesmerising. I like going to things with you, I see things I wouldn’t otherwise see.
I see things I wouldn’t otherwise see. This is one of them for me too.
 
I was facilitating art classes last week with older people in hospitals and care homes and one of them, Brian, was unable to speak or hear. Don’t worry, the nurse said, he will make you understand him. And he did. Brian painted flowers, big colourful flowers. We chatted with our hands, our faces and our paint. We did not need to use our voices. It was a dance between two people.
Babulus is a dance between five people, one of whom is a bear now and again. A bizarre, fluffy, comedic yet sentient and sympathetic character to foil the darker elements of tied hands and closed mouths. I still found it creepy. The clown in the classroom, the slapstick to the poignant. I realise that this is just me – everyone else loved the softer element, the balance, the reference to a childhood toy. I still have my Bear, he sleeps with me still and he is my most valuable possession so I do get it, I get the thinking, I just don’t like it until I watch her loose a dancer’s bonds, quietly, softly.
But the dance itself? Oh it is superb. The dancers come together, push apart, come together, push apart using movement, chatter, language, sticky tape, song and light. They are beautifully choreographed, they are beautifully lit. It is mesmerising. There are two themes I particularly like: the holding of hands over each other’s mouths; and the bunching together babbling in their mother tongues. I like that they emerge from behind us, that they make eye contact with us, that they threaten us and engage with us. They laugh with us too.
It is the dance between two people, one with his hand over her mouth with her twisting away to speak, that I will remember most – they roll into and over each other in a balletic, deceptive, controlling, power struggle. I wish I could see this again and again. It called to me.
It is also one of the best after show discussions I have ever attended. The performers, dancers, are as engaging vocally as they have been throughout their piece. Clever, open, responsive to their audience, they are indeed communicating at all levels. Not babbling at all, really.
 
Event:                   Bablulus
Seen:                    1930, 17th February, 2017
Reviewer:            Helen Joy for 3rd Act Critics
Running:               Friday 17 February – Saturday 18 February
Cost :                    Tickets: £12/£10; Age 11+
Running time: approx. 50mins  
Links:     http://www.chapter.org/babulus
Production:         Gwyn Emberton and ilDance collaboration
Music:                  Oscar Collin
Lighting and design:         Joe Fletcher
Direction:            Sara Lloyd
Babulus was created and toured with the support of Arts Council Wales, Gothenburg International Theatre and Dance Festival, The Work Room, Wales Arts International, Göteborg Stad, Västra Götalandsregionen, NDCWales, Ballet Cymru, Balettakademien Stockholm, Konstnärsnämnden, and Arts Promotion Centre Finland.

Opera & classical

Review: Love’s Poisoned Chalice season – Madam Butterfly & Le Vin Herbe

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Madam Butterfly & Le Vin Herbe

Love’s Poisoned Chalice

Welsh National Opera at Wales Millenium Centre

 
Madam Butterfly 4 Stars

Sweet little Butterfly is but 15. A child.  A beautiful, lost child to us.
Pinkerton is to our eyes horribly unattractive, horrible in deed, fact and person. I don’t want him anywhere near her.
But, she is in love and he is in lust.
He is the archetypal American soldier – overpaid, oversexed and over here. He has the tacit and overt support of his colleagues. He blinds Butterfly’s friends and family with his pomp and wealth.
It is an arranged marriage. Butterfly enters into it with enthusiasm and a love for Pinkerton which is not reciprocated.
He, of course, leaves her. She brings up their child with the help of her servant, Suzuki, over the 3 years of his absence in hope and penury. Pinkerton returns with his American wife and they assume the boy as their own. Butterfly kills herself. She has loved too much.
Not a new story in any sense. It is utterly predictable and pitiful. And honest.
I have seen this production before but I have not heard or seen such an utterly perfect Butterfly before. She is a little light burning into the sepia staging. She sings with her soul on fire.
 
Le Vin Herbe  5 Stars
The story of Tristan and Iseult the fair. Accidental lovers brought together by circumstance and potions. Their love is inconvenient and uncontrollable. Their exile and their isolation disrupted by a secret visit from the king, Iseult’s husband to be, who leaves his sword to show his lenience. The lovers overthink his intentions and return to their respective lives at court.
Tristan marries Iseult of the white hands who takes her revenge on his love for the ‘other woman’ when he is dying. Iseult returns to die over his dead body. The brambles entwine their bodies for eternity.
An outstanding production. Skeletal, dark, passionate, ironic.  Show-stealing leads against an outstanding chorus. This is a well-known story well told and chest-beatingly hot.
A few thoughts:
Now, both of these operas are about love and life and fate and death. They both imply you can love too much. They both sing to us of the nasty twisty business of chance and tell us that passion will end badly. They both show us women who give up their hearts to their men, to their lords and masters.
Butterfly sees a way to a happy, comfortable, settled life with her soldier and gives up her faith, family and friends to do so. Iseult gives up a husband, crown, wealth and status to follow her knight into the woods to live in a poor shed full of flowers.
Pinkerton makes no sacrifices; he is not in love. Butterfly, Tristan and Iseult are all in thrall to love and make the ultimate sacrifice. Pinkerton is rewarded for his disinterest.
Messing with fate is clearly a bad idea but the music it invokes is not. These are two visually and vocally disparate operas with similar stories to tell. They are well chosen, well cast and masterly.
 
Madam Butterfly’s Un Bel Di Vedremo is Puccini at his best; Le Vin Herbe is opera at its best.
 
Event:                   Madam Butterfly, Puccini
Seen:                    Feb 10, 2017
Website:              https://www.wno.org.uk/event/madam-butterfly-0
Running:              Friday, February 10, 2017 – Saturday, April 29, 2017
Conductor                           Lawrence Foster (until 4 Mar). Andrew Greenwood (from 24 Mar)
Director                               Joachim Herz
Revival Director             Sarah Crisp
Designer                              Reinhart Zimmermann
Costume Designer         Eleonore Kleiber
Chorus Master                 Stephen Harris
 
Lieutenant Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton           Jonathan Burton
Goro marriage broker                                                 Simon Crosby Buttle
Suzuki a servant                                                             Rebecca Afonwy-Jones
Sharpless the American consul                                David Kempster
Cio-Cio-San (Madam Butterfly)                             Karah Son
A Welsh National Opera production, sung in Italian

……………………..

Event:                   Le Vin Herbe, Frank Martin
Seen:                    Feb 17, 2017
Running:              Thursday, February 16, 2017 – Tuesday, April 25, 2017
Conductor                                           James Southall
Director                                               Polly Graham
Designer                                              April Dalton
Lighting Designer                            Tim Mitchell
Storytellers                                        Full Company
Iseult’s mother                                 Catherine Wyn-Rogers
Iseult the Fair                                    Caitlin Hulcup
Brangien, companion                    Rosie Hay
Mark King of Cornwall                   Howard Kirk
Tristan his nephew                         Tom Randle
Duke Hoël a nobleman                 Stephen Wells
Kaherdin his son                              Gareth Dafydd Morris
Iseult of the White Hands           Sian Meinir
Solo narrators                                   Anitra Blaxhall, Rosie Hay, Sarah Pope, Joe Roche, Howard Kirk, Stephen Wells, Catherine Wyn-Rogers
A Welsh National Opera production, sung in English

 

 

Film & TV

BAFTAS the Welsh way, a personal response by Helen Joy

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bafta-award

I leave St David’s Hall, feet hurting & makeup failing, holding a paper napkin full of warm quiche and Welsh rarebit. Outside, sitting cross-legged on the floor with his back against a wall is a homeless man with a lap full of BAFTA chocolates, still in their fancy boxes. Would you like something savoury? Ooh, yes please. Here, enjoy.

What is it about us that believes there is a difference between the ordinary folk and the extraordinary, the stars, the celebs? Do we judge what makes us special by our material wealth, our social standing, our academic success, the number of people who recognise us? I am as happy as the next post-80s socialite to be in her glad rags and jewels for a night but I am concerned that with all that money and status and happiness abounding tonight, that homeless person has a lap full of freebie chocolate. Maybe someone will write him a cheque.

Other people will talk about the glitz and the nominees and the winners and the glitterballs of a spectacular night. I want to talk about ordinary people, the social aspects of an awards event and the curious exclusivity of the Welsh Language.

To start again, I am standing in the press pen wishing I had a mallow ice-cream cornet to wave at people like a mike, asking for an interview. I am strangely confused by the lack of enthusiasm of journalists to actually talk to the guests. One old hack prefers to cover news events, another happily interviews in Welsh, armed with his iphone on record. Two reviewers behind me barely talk to each other. Others think that we four from Get the Chance are better turned out than the stars.

Which brings me to another reflection on society today (sic), what happened to Black Tie occasions meaning black tie? This is not about class, this is about respecting the invitation from the organisers, sponsors, guests, nominees and attendees; as well as the public so patiently waiting along the barricades. This is the BAFTA’s after all – a visual feast. The men generally are smart but very few bow ties and a nasty selection of daps on show. So few women sweep the red carpet in elegant attire that the ones I spot, I approach at the party later and tell them how lovely they looked, how professional. Each one crumbles in gratitude and enjoys the compliment. So few walk with confidence, I hesitate to use the word deportment but high heels and tight dresses usually benefit from a fine carriage.. why are all these extraordinary women so lacking in assurance? Perhaps it is their ordinariness revealed.

Everyone is friendly. Perhaps it helps that no one is 100% sure who everyone else is; there is no differentiation between attendees – we are all mucking in together in the audience, in the party, in the bars, taking selfies with the BAFTA masks. This makes for a remarkably easy atmosphere and a great buzz. We are all extraordinary; both inside and outside the building.

But is this exclusive? I am disappointed by the Welshness of it all. I know, it’s the Welsh BAFTA’s, BAFTA Cymru; but this is designed to celebrate the wonderful dramatic work in Wales and share it, not create a club based on linguistics. I was born in Wales, I have some Welsh language and I was educated here in Cardiff. Am I alone in thinking that this thing is not for the likes of me? There are not many people lining those barricades along The Hayes, the lack of press, the scuttling into the Hall, the dressing-down, the determination to celebrate smallness over scale. It feels just a little bit poor, the content just a little bit too fashionable. A fab party but not a BAFTAs, a magnificent glorification of TV and Film, helping to get those important messages out there – it’s OK to have fun, it’s right to tell your story, it’s good to want to change the world.

It feels just a little bit ordinary, whatever that is. We should have more pride and shout it out. It is time for another wafer, monsieur; and I think most of us ordinary folk would also prefer something savoury, something more substantial.

Caveat

Every evening in Cardiff I see more and more homeless people; last night, when leaving the WMC on a cold, foggy night, sitting in a corner against the main building was a man completing a broad sheet newspaper. We interrupted him to give him what cash we had about us – a paltry handful of change as it turned out – but he would not take it without giving us something in return. He gave us a magic trick. We enjoyed a chat and a laugh together and went on our way. I wished I had some warm quiche for him too.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Dance

Review NDCW Autumn Tour ‘Folk’ by Helen Joy

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5d3_9744

out of 5 stars (4 / 5)

Profundis, They Seek to find the Happiness they Seem, Folk

Profundis

In whispered tones of reverence, I am told: it is, oooh, wonderful, you’re in for a treat…

A woman in purple stands hugging herself in dance. She is singular, beautiful.

The spot light shifts to a gloriously sexy scene, a woman in white revelling in her spot-lit body writhes on the stage. She is right in front of me, I can see into her eyes. I am mesmerised. Carted away by men in black, the performance erupts into a fantasy of colour, dance, commentary, music and comedy. It is at once surreal, curious and charming. Sinister. Younger audiences find this funnier; we are awkward, we laugh in the wrong places. The dancers say that they find their voices in dance not in language but have enjoyed this challenge, being free to be themselves, to speak, to interpret freely within the confines of the psalm. De Profundis.

It is the creation of genius. It has the feel of a masterpiece. It is an abstract painting come to life. It is Kandinsky dancing. Of all the images, I am left with the man in red knuckling his way across the floor, man as ape as movement to music. A treat, indeed.

The Seek to Find the Happiness They Seem

Dance partners in black and navy and they trip through the dark, faces lit like portraits looming out of Rembrandt. Oh, this is exquisite. They are so lovely to watch. Perfectly in unison, Fred and Ginger ducking and diving and dancing in front of us, I can feel the warm swoosh of air across my face as they sweep past.

To Richter, they fail, their sense of loss and confusion is complete.

Folk

Bosch. It is a Bosch in all its painted madness cavorting in front of us. It is a crazy world. It rises from the soil of Autumn leaves into this crepuscular land. It is a topsy turvy place, a slight inversion, sensitive to struggling personality, to groupings, pairings and isolation.

Something warm and heavy, muted and visceral, carefully cadaverous, so beautiful from a distance but gently sinister close up. It is a convoluting palette of earth. It is breathtaking.

To see these dancers up close and personal, the bandages on their toes, the straps around their knees, the sweat on their faces, each muscle flexing, is to see perfection. To hear their feet feel the ground, to see expression in every tiny movement, is to see beauty.

I want to pull this piece into the night air, I want to let them free to scatter real leaves, dancing under real trees.

I want to press Stop: I want to fix them like statues and examine every moment. I cannot watch it all and I have missed so much but oh, I have taken something magical, ethereal, wonderful away with me.

http://www.ndcwales.co.uk/en
Enjoyed:         14th November, 2016 at NDCW, Cardiff
Profundis
Choreography:             Roy Assaf
Music and Sound:       Uoon I, Alva Noto (Vrioon Electronic)
Enta Omri, Umm Kulthum (Original 1964 Live Recording)
Lighting Design:          Omer Sheizaf
Costume Design:          Angharad Matthews
Costume:                     Deryn Tudor
Angharad Griffiths
 
They Seek to Find the Happiness They Seem
Choreographer:        Lee Johnston
Music:                                    Max Richter
Lighting:                     Joe Fletcher
Costume:                   Zepur Agopyan
Dancers:                    Matteo Marfoglia, Elena Thomas
Folk
Choreographer:        Caroline Finn
Visual Artist:             Joe Fletcher
Music:                                    Assorted (see website below)
Lighting:                     Joe Fletcher
Costume:                   Gabriella Slade
Dancers:                    Josef Perou, Camille Giraudeau, Matteo Marfoglia, Mathieu Geffre, Angela Boix Duran, Elena Thomas, David Pallant, Josie Sinnadurai, Ed Myhill
 
 
http://www.ndcwales.co.uk/en/what-s-on/autumn-tour-folk/
 

Theatre

Review Snout Sherman Theatre by Helen Joy

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out of 5 stars (3 / 5)
 

This is a tricky one. The write up says that this is a play which examines ethical farm practices and may put you off your pie.  This is not quite what we get. It is not ‘Fun’ but it is ‘Food, Drink and Drama’. Or did I miss something?

I take three friends with me –we are all women, all farmers and two of us keep pigs. We discuss the play we have seen and the pie we have eaten a lot. In fact, we talk about it over chips later on Penarth Pier and again in the week. It has made us think. But perhaps not in the way Playwright Kelly Jones would like us to.

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Cast members  Sally Reid, Michele Gallagher and Clare Cage

Photographic credit Kirsten McTernan

It is a play about 3 little pigs, 3 women acting as pigs and as women. They are in a trailer heading for the slaughter house. Their actions and conversations are an odd mixture of supposed pig talk and young women chatter. They grunt occasionally. One is a cross carrying faithful type who misses her sister, one is a punky type who misses her lover and the other is a party going good time girl. A bit stereotypical. They work out that they are not going to a show but to the abattoir and so forth.

Now here’s a problem. Facts. Anyone who knows anything about pigs, knows that they don’t carry hairbrushes or wear crosses. They also don’t get electric shocks for bad behaviour when they squeal in a trailer. They might wander into a shed to watch a farmer, er, enjoy himself but we are pretty sure that we don’t know anyone who finds pigs that attractive.

When they talk about life, death and the lack of control over their lives, something resonates with me. Do they contemplate the meaning of life? Do we, as owners, play God?

Pigs are fun to be around precisely because they are calculating, funny and usually, miles ahead of their keepers. But we keep them also because they can be eaten. The speech at the end, before they trot out to their doom, is tediously predictable and aimed at converting the audience to vegetarianism, I think. My colleagues are not impressed and feel that this last scene spoils an otherwise interesting and thought-provoking play.

Then we have the after-show discussion. Lots of people have stayed behind for this and we are keen to debate the ideas raised in the performance.

But there is a surprise. Jones take an unexpected stance. She tells us about tattooed pigs and cruelty. She then explains that the play is actually about feminism; she uses the pigs to slaughter as metaphor for seeing women as meat, as bodies to be cut up into pieces, as porn, as without control. Oh. I see now. This makes sense of scenes previously lost to me.

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We discuss life and end of life, self-determinism, women’s rights, farming practices and eating meat. The audience is enthusiastic and picks up a particular thread with zeal: why have a play about killing animals and then give us a meat pie? Where does that meat come from, asks another. But it’s about women, not pigs, really.

We get it.

It makes even more sense when Jones explains to me that she had taken a 1hr40min play and made it into a 40min production. Sometimes, we need to rewrite not just slash and edit or we lose the meaning of a piece.  The playwright cannot attend every production to explain. The metaphor is clever, her idea is sound and with tweaking, would make an outstanding work.

I looked up the use of tattooed pigs for handbags – can’t be true, we said, but it was: art as an excuse for profit. Deeply shocking. I can see where she is coming from and Jones definitely is on to something here.

Enjoyed:         10th November, 2016 at The Sherman Theatre, Cardiff

Playwright:    Kelly Jones

Director:         Kenny Miller

Actors:

Coco Clare Cage

Lacey Michele Gallagher

Viv Sally Reid

http://www.shermantheatre.co.uk/performance/theatre/a-play-a-pie-and-a-pint-november-16/