Monday, February 25, 2008 :
New weapon
One of the most striking images of the Islamic fundamentalist threat is that of the suicide bomber, going into battle against us in our places of work, entertainment or on our public transport networks such as the tube with dynamite–laden vest, fanatical zeal reinforced by the promise of virgins in paradise. I was therefore interested to see posters on the tube recently suggesting that we might have found a terrifying weapon with which to strike back — a suicide vest compared to which the power of mere explosive is as the bite of a gnat to a mauling from a salt water crocodile:
Labels: london, war on terror
WSPA benefit
I went to a benefit comedy gig for the WSPA last night at the Hammersmith Apollo, hosted by Robin Ince. It was a big gig with lots of good people on the bill. Some, I’d seen before (Lucy Porter, Phil Nichol, Will Smith, Bill Bailey: most of whom did similar, if not the same, material as the last time I’d seen them). Of those whom I did not recall having seen previously (a slightly equivocal statement, I appreciate: comedy club visits and booze tend to go hand in hand), I probably enjoyed Chris Addison and Tim Minchin the most. Tim Minchin in particular seems to be a very talented performer and I would be keen to see him again on a smaller bill.
Sunday, February 17, 2008 :
Pina Bausch
My mood improved by United’s performance in the F.A. Cup, I risked another trip to Sadler’s Wells last night, this time to take in a Pina Bausch double bill comprising Café Müller and The Rite of Spring. I was pretty nervous about this prospect. The last time I went to see a Pina Bausch work, it lasted for over three hours. So a double bill had potential to carry on until dawn. It was clear from the outset that this was a significant London arts establishment ‘event’. The house was packed; the crowd older and more serious than for Jerome Bel. These people had manifestly spent decades each earnestly appreciating art.
The pieces being performed (to my relief each under an hour long) are from the 1970s and apparently very widely acclaimed. The first was set in a café, with six characters. It evoked an emotionally supercharged Eastenders episode set to dance. This stuff was quite old–school: very clearly a performance and with characters and narrative. It was emotionally intense and discomfiting — as indeed a really heavy Eastenders episode set to dance would be, assuming that it didn’t cross the line into bathos. This didn’t. It was also immediately obvious that these dancers were top–drawer in technical ability.
The other work, after an interval, was very different. The entire stage was covered in a couple of inches of brown soil, Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring was played and a dance was done by a large cast. This was less “contemporary dance” than a lot of contemporary dance — being almost like a ballet in structure and feel and much more the sort of thing that a non–dance person would expect to see if they went along “to see some dance”. Refreshing, once in a while: you could almost just relax and enjoy it. If Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and the movement inspired by it had happened to be remotely relaxing. It was an extremely striking visual spectacle, brilliantly choreographed and performed with great virtuosity and intensity. Very high quality and well worth seeing. It received a standing ovation from the whole house, which the performers deserved.
Other reactions: Independent / Times.
Labels: contemporary dance
Sunday, February 10, 2008 :
The Show Must Go On
I went to see Jerome Bel’s “The Show Must Go On” at Sadler’s Wells last night. It’s a 2001 work, but I hadn’t heard about it. The concept is a series of apparently unconnected tableaux involving a large cast of performers — exhibiting different degrees of apparent dance–training — set to pop music played by a lackadaisical “sound guy” sat at sound decks at the front.
Basically, each tableau is more or less a piss take in the context of the music, for example the entire cast standing completely still, staring at the audience during David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance”, bursting into vigorous school disco–style dancing at unexpected moments. There are a number of common themes to the targets for mockery. One comprises examples of excessive sentimentality in popular culture, including for example Lionel Ritchie (deliberately crap ballet dancing pastiche to “Ballerina Girl”), the final scene from Titanic (Celine Dion plays as the cast stages deliberately crap recreation of that scene on the bow of the ship as the stage sinks away) and Roberta Flack (cast stand quietly singing the words to “Killing Me Softly” as they keel over and pretend to die, eventually all lying motionless on the floor like the victims of a firing squad as the music plays on to the end). Another ridicules the Euro disco scene (inevitably dated, these elements, given the time elapsed since 2001), for example “I Like to Move it, Move it” (cast perform disturbing repetitive movements in the manner of the severely mentally ill) and “The Macarena” (entire cast simply do the Macarena — which I suppose only has to be performed in order to be lampooned).
Many of the audience are chuckling away at the absurdist images; some of them bopping along to the catchy music, but for the most part I wasn’t laughing. Who’s he taking the piss out of here? Isn’t it all of us dickheads in the audience? There is no attempt to connect: right to the curtain call, the performers remain in personae, aloof from the audience. The final joke is when, just after the applause has completely stopped (a standing ovation from some quarters), the cast come back out. The audience, caught out, stops getting up to leave and applauds again. Meanwhile, a woman of a certain age a few seats down from us in the audience echoes the first few movements of the Macarena, as she attempts to remember them. For a work that on a superficial level is comedic, I am afraid that I left feeling strangely bleak. Maybe that’s the point. Or maybe I was just in a bad mood.
Other reactions: Guardian / Dance Insider / NY Times.
Labels: contemporary dance
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