At Earthfall |
| Earthfall Dance- Running Away with the Hairdresser , Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff , April 30, 2004 |
[This review first appeared in the Western Mail]Earthfall’s latest show is undoubtedly the most entertaining thing I’ve seen for ages – great music, lots of energy, witty, funny, sexy and a million miles from the pretentious, coy, cutesy kind of so-say lighthearted dance we’ve had of late. For the company, I guess, it’s a respite from the technological wizadry, highly personalised and politically-charged extravaganza that was Can’t Stand Up for Falling Down that explored the collapse of people alongside the destruction of high buildings, potent stuff just after the Twin Towers attack. Here we have the whacky story of an unqualified doctor who is fed up with the smell of human sickness and decides on a radical career change – either to contract killing or hairdressing in France. It’s little more than an excuse for Gerald Tyler to indulge in some of his psychotic ramblings (culminating in a bizarre scene where he lies in a bath obsessed with the belief that his shoes are made out of the exhumed body of Elvis) and for the Earthfall ensemble to execute some fun clog-cum-tap dancing, flirting, passionate singing and a soundtrack – mostly live – that ranges from string quartets to Tom Waits-style chanson. You can’t really categorise this maverick Cardiff company. Dance is at the core but there’s always plenty of theatricality, video streaming, music and references to a wider culture – and more and more to cinema, especially film noir. Somehow behind the very thin narrative here there’s a tale of some infidelity and a murder planned and the stage action is frequently shown as a black and white movie behind the performers. And, as they acknowledge in their programme notes, they intentionally pay homage to a range of directors from Hitchcock to Hal Hartley. The hairdresser motif allows Tyler to do a manic take on Edward Scissorshand, of course – in between being very like a character from any Tarrantino film, maybe Pulp Fiction in particular. Now all this is very amusing and knowing, but it does suggest that directors Jessica Cohen and Jim Ennis and their collaborators are lurching into a style of performance that wallows in the excesses of postmodernism – lots if references, plenty of pastiche, oodles of irony, mostly signifying absolutely nothing. The whole interdisciplinary approach, of course, is at the core of what Earthfall is about – here dancers are expected to act, actors to dance and the sound technician to sing – but there has also been a concern for the political realities and psychological traumas of modern life. Here the notion of any meanings, any real content, is pretty elusive, except the rather obvious one of escape. While Running Away with the Hairdresser is undoubtedly great fun and utterly engaging, the apparent abandonment of deeper layers could be problematic: the company relies not so much on traditional qualities (the dancing’s strength is its enthusiasm and energy rather than traditional skills, while the acting is of the cod-reality confessional school that requires none of the usual training) and what makes the work successful is a mix in which a certain seriousness gnaws away at the sound, vision and physicality of the performance. But, then , if the theme is running away, maybe a show that turns its back on seriousness is necessarily going to be intentionally superficial and the triumph of the ragbag of references that defines so much contemporary work is here very tongue-in-cheek…. Gosh, this postmodernist business does your head in, doesn’t it. It’s back later this year. Make a note to catch it then if you missed it now. It is a delight, even if you don’t know your Coen Brothers from your Bergman, unless you want a recognisable storyline, precision dancing and naturalistic acting – but that is sooo twentieth century. |
Reviewed by: David Adams |
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