| Scintillating Opening Night of International Tour |
Veil of Stars/ Romance Inverse |
| National Dance Company Wales , Aberystwyth Arts Centre , February 2, 2010 |
A cloud several feet deep envelops the stage. Ten figures glide on wearing masks of gold and multi-coloured costumes that glitter. Joe Fletcher’s lighting design lights the dancers from above and behind. Composer Julien Tirrade’s thirty minute original score is too eclectic to be easily pinned down in words. The intention of Andonis Foniadakis’ choreography is to eschew narrative “to create a dreamy universe, a sensation of the universe that, in a theatrical sense, is beyond purely real time and physical space.”His choreography avoids ensemble movement but does divide into roughly three sections. At the end of the first the masks are removed; the most striking moment has seen four golden faces lain one upon another. At the beginning of the third part the masks are ripped off and crumpled up. Maria Hayday has a solo sequence to music of multi-tracked violin. In her costume of glimmering silver the sequence culminates in her ascent of a line formed by the other dancers. As she passes over them one by one they drop away from the line. It is the end to a thrilling symphony of light, colour and movement. The colours for “Romance Inverse” by contrast are black and white. Steve Reich’s rhythmic keyboard and percussion score melds into music by Percossa, a Dutch percussion quartet. In the first section the male dancers hold six foot square panels, one side dark, one side light. As they move them across the stage the dance space is constantly shifted and re-arranged into different planes. When the music shifts to the pure driving percussion they too join the dance. The whole point of dance is that it exists outside language. The publicity for the tour promises the audience “you will be drilled to your seats as the dancers surf the music,” a metaphor that might cause alarm. Andonis Foniadakis states quite clearly that his work is “emotional rather than intellectual.” All this viewer can say that the impact is scintillating. I had the benefit of an audience member nearby trained in dance. With her acute eye for technique she pronounced the dancers faultless. Aesthetically she preferred Itzik Galili’s choreography with its more integrated passages. A theatre reviewer with a less seasoned eye is inevitably going to be swayed by the greater colour of the first piece. Either way it is a compelling combination and the opening first night audience gave the company its resounding endorsement. On the company name change it was time for the old name to go - and not just because there was only a three letter difference from the troupe that scooped last year’s “Britain’s Got Talent.” The word “national” bears a lot of weight but on the evidence of this production it is an accolade that the company carries lightly. “Veil of Stars / Romance Inverse” tours Torch Theatre Milford Haven 3-4 Feb, Taliesin Arts Centre Swansea 11 & 12 Feb, then Ireland and Switzerland, and Clwyd Theatr Cymru, Mold 15-16 April. |
Reviewed by: Adam Somerset |
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