27'52"
Choreographed by
Jirl Kylian
Company
Dancers
Carolina Armenta
Urtzi Aranburu
Bregje van Balen
Lorraine Blouin
Amos Ben-Tal
Isabelle Chaffaud
Natasha Crook
Rafaelle Delaunay
Ivan Dubreuil
Patrick Delcroix
Jorma Elo
Nancy Euverink
Shirley Esseboom
Simone Geiger
Johan Inger
Joeri de Korte
Vaclav Kunes
Paul Lightfoot
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Nederlands Dance
Theatre 2
Sadler's Wells
29 - 31 May 2003
This superb troupe of dancers, with its policy of having nothing but the best choreography to explore and express its talents, always generates high expectations in prospective audiences. And audiences are rarely disappointed. The dancers give everything with fluency, sensual athleticism and unstinting energy, and it seems that however demanding or imaginative the choreography, there is nothing the troupe cannot handle.
This programme begins with a dream, an erotically-tinged reverie, appropriately called "Dream Play", about the relationship of the sexes. Its technical centrepiece is an almost superhuman feat of endurance by Medhi Walerski, who is on stage throughout. A simple but effective set, nothing more than a moveable wall, facilitates the story, which tells of encounter, rejection, quarrel, rapprochement, change and discovery, all putatively in a split-second as a man sees a woman walking by. Choreographed by Johan Inger, it is a gripping exercise in dance theatre.
In a brilliant short interlude two dancers wittily accompany a reading of Gertrude Stein's experimental poem "If I told him". The poem is a success if well read, but becomes a work of art when commented upon by this zany, clever, funny work of balletic mime. Called "Shutters Shut" it is choreographed by Paul Lightfoot and Sol Leon, who also devised the following piece, danced to the second movement of Mahler's string-orchestra arrangement of Schubert's "Death and the Maiden". Six dancers and a large red carpet are the dramatis personae; the haunting intensity of the music becomes a further actor; the extraordinarily quick precision of the transactions between dancers, and the seamless flow of the dance itself, is mesmerising. Marthe Krummenacher and Medhi Walerski are the principals in the piece, and together tell a rich story whose theme is close to that of "Dream Play".
Jiri Kylian is a choreographer of genius, and nothing he does can lack interest. But the final piece, alone of the programme choreographed by him, and called 27'52" because it takes 27 minutes and 52 seconds to perform despite having taken 4418 hours to prepare, is the least captivating of the evening's works. Recognisably a Kylian creation, with his signature gestures, shapes and movements, it lacked the narrative strength of the other pieces, and yet was not as plausible as Kylian usually is when giving us abstract dance. Still: it was full of beauties and expressiveness nevertheless, and worthily brought an extraordinary and moving evening of dance to its close.
AC Grayling
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