Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui's two hour piece Myth is one of his two projects at Sadler's Wells this month. The other, Sutra, is a collaboration with Anthony Gormley, performed with 17 monks from the Shaolin Temple in China.
       Myth is a piece of dance theatre, blending every day movement with contortionist dance, speech, theatre and comedy. Cherkaoui's method owes much to Pina Bausch; he tells us in the programme that Myth was created by asking the 19 dancers to respond to questions with movement, then weaving the responses into four "chapters". Each chapter is announced by a quotation from diverse authors from Leonardo da Vinci to Dante to Henry Miller. The result is scenes entitled "Time opens its doors to those who wait", "oh vain shadows, except on your appearance", "all growth is a leap in the dark" and "do we stand in our light, wherever we go and fight our shadows for ever", the meaning of which become only slightly clearer as the action unfolds on stage.
     Reflecting Cherkaoui's own mixed cultural background (he has Flemish and Moroccan parents) Myth is profoundly eclectic, in culture, style, geography and time. The five characters who form the narrative speak different languages. The music sounds middle eastern, sometimes far eastern, then African, but the seven wonderful musicians of Ensemble Micrologus play mainly medieval European music on instruments with romantic names like the shawm, ney, psalterium and rebec.
       Myth takes place in a library, in which five human characters are pursued, shadowed, licked, tortured, revived, and wrestled, by a group of black clad rubbery animalistic contortionists displaying phenomenal physical talent. The visual effect is extraordinary, impressive, mysterious, and at times too repetitious and long. The point seems to be to juxtapose 'myth' (these creatures and the hidden parts and traps of the physical set) with the 'real' human characters - the rejected bride, black transvestite, the difficult red-head, each with very real neuroses and hang-ups. Cherkaoui says that through dance he translates the world into something beyond the facts, and draws on reality and surreal things. The result is certainly surreal; perhaps too long and nebulous, but an original and challenging piece.
Maya Lester