| |
Theatre listings >
Autumn Tour 2003 -
Scottish Dance Theatre.
Four Peices in the Programme three seen at each venue.
These Three Peices were reviewed.
On The Edge.
Choreographer - Annabelle Bonnéry.
Assistant - François Deneulin.
Music - Louis Paralis.
Designer - Phyllis Byrne.
Lighting Designer - Sylvain Fabry.
Broken.
Choreographer - Rui Horta.
Assistant - Sonia Rodriguez.
Music - Fred Firth, Kato Hideki and Ikue Mori.
Designer Lighting, Set & Costume - Rui Horta.
My House is Melting,
Choreographer - Beth Cassani 2003 Peter Darrell Choreographer
Award Winner.
Music - Kronos Quartet, Marlene Dietrich, Kroke, Yonderboi.
Sound Design - Andy Wood.
Designer - Phyllis Byrne.
Lighting Designer - Tim Skelly.
Company - Scottish
Dance Theatre SDT are based at Dundee Rep 01382 342600
Artistic Director - Janet Smith.
2003 Autumn Tour details see Scottish
Dance Theatre website
Seen to review at Musselburgh Brunton Theatre on 16 Ocotber 2003.
Reviewer - Thelma Good.
For now movement subsides niggles.
In Scotland contemporary dance is drawing more and more enthusiastic audiences
eager for the looser, freed up form where accomplished and inventive movement
is celebrated in pieces involves a few dancers often on a nearly bare
stage. Some may hanker for longer ones in which any narrative has many
strands and subplots. But when you only have nine dancers in your troupe,
the demands of a full length dance performance with a complex tale to
tell must be left for other companies.
We're fortunate indeed now in Scotland to have a newly refashioned company
in Ashley Page's Scottish Ballet set to compliment the small scale but
hugely engaging Scottish Dance Theatre. After 6 years of growing audiences
SDT's autumn tour maintains their technically precise yet warm style,
it's a style which enable choreographers to create works to enthrall.
But I'm yearning for more variation in this dance company's response to
the world we live in. The one these dancers create contain too many snapshots
of human emotions, love, rejection, loss and lust. Perhaps that's inevitable
in a company which only contains youthful and beautifully formed dancers.
On The Edge by Annabelle Bonnéry
has two couples preparing to go out. The male of one pair paces the floor
while the female adores herself in the mirror. The other couple are so
engrossed with one another the getting ready is diverted into tender caresses,
though the woman responds reluctantly. When all four meet they react in
varying ways as the male of one couple is visibly attracted by the female
of the other. The ignored female painfully shows her internal disintegration
in a piece using music and rhythms in opposing ways.
Broken by Rui Horta is more abstract,
like an argument between two ways to interact with the world. Here two
dancers Riccardo Meneghini and Victoria Roberts move in distinctively
different ways to beginning with. She more rigid and deformed, bending
her arms so her hands touch her shoulders trying to be symmetrical. He
fluid and flowing in his contrastingly asymmetric movements. When they
collide particles of their natures transpose on the other. It becomes
a rewarding physical exposition of our attempts to fuse the abstract concepts
of order and freedom.
My House is Melting by 2003 Peter
Darrell Choreographer Award Winner Beth Cassani has six dancers, four
men and two women. The programme tells us they are a theatrical troupe,
they enter and exit through one item of set, a door which is set into
a table. The other item of set is a block of ice on a rope which melts
as the piece is performed. To a variety of music including that reminiscent
of Yiddish orchestras the dancers perform a variety of stories, some are
harder to follow than others, and too many are inconclusive. The Floopsy
Twins, two characters whose bones seem made of bendy rubber and some of
the moments where the ensemble work together in this piece are particularly
satisfying when images transform into others.
Sometimes, confronted by the images and unclear moments of contemporary
dance pieces it's tempting to yell " Why are they doing this and
where is the real Art?" Watching SDT their extremely fine ensemble
movement causes the rising niggles to subside for the moment. I left wanting
to see more Contemporary Dance pieces tackle a wider variety of forms,
dancers and topics. Their choreographers also need to consider taking
more effort to ensure some pieces have clearer narratives drawn from sharper
multi-edged tensions. Yes these pieces all display the dancers abilities,
but only Broken has statisfying clarity
in its creative vision.
© Thelma Good 16 October 2003. - Published on EdinburghGuide.com
News - Scottish Dance Theatre (SDT), Dundee Rep's dance company,
has just been nominated for a 2003 Critics' Circle National Dance Award.
The Company is nominated for the Company Prize For Outstanding Repertoire
(Modern) for their Spring tour.
The repertoire featured Beth Cassani's 'My House Is Melting' & Victor
Quijada's 'Self Observation Without Judgement' - both of which can be
seen at selected dates on the company's current Autumn Tour - and New
Art Club's 'Revenge Of The Impossible Things'. The winner will be announced
in January 2004.
Reviews of 2002
Tour and 2003
Spring Tour which contains a review of the fourth piece in the
2003 Autumn tour by another 2003 Peter Darrell Choreographer Award
Winner - Self Observation Without Judgement by
Victor Quijada.
Dancers - James MacGillivary, Baptiste Bourgougnon, Ruth Janssen,
Richardo Meneghini, Anthony Missen, Gemma Nixon, Victoria Roberts, Holly
Warren and Philippa White.
2003 Tour details
25 - 27 Oct at 8pm Dundee Rep Theatre 01382 223530.
30 Oct at 7:30pm. Glasgow Theatre Royal 0141 332 9000.
4 Oct at 9pm Greece International Dance Festival of Thessaloniki 0030
2310 822200.
16 Oct at 7:30pm Musselburgh Brunton Theatre 0131 665 2240.
21 Oct at 7.30pm Pitlochry Festival Theatre 01796 484626.
24 Oct at 7.30pm Aberdeen His Majesty's 01224 641122.
4 Nov at 7:30pm Winchester Theatre Royal 01962 840440.
6 Nov at 7:30pm Swansea Taliesin Arts Centre 01792 296883.
11&12 Nov at 7:30pm Mold The Antony Hopkins Theatre 0845 330 3565.
18 Nov at 8pm Inverness Eden Court 01463 234234
20 Nov at 7.30pm Galashiels The Volunteer Hall 01750 724901
22 Nov at 7.30pm Falkirk Town Hall 01324 506850
25 Nov at 8pm St Andrews Byre Theatre 01334 475000
Tour Ends
They will also be appearing at next year's prestigious British Dance Edition
event which is being held in Cambridge.
Theatre listings >>
|
|
