Image Tristram Kenton
MAYFIELD BUILDING
Choreography Boris Charmatz
This is a stunning sensory experience. The cavernous disused space is all shadows and shade. The floor glistens like a still pool waiting for the dancers to plunge in or gracefully thread water. The music by Mozart (Requiem in D minor K.626) is breathtakingly beautiful apart from the occasional puncuations of screams, howls and frantic number counting.
As the dancers flood the space in varying degrees of undress there is a sharp sense of Movement, Movement, Everywhere and not a drop to drink in. 10,000 gestures is ambitious and gloriously absurd in its celebration of the impermancy of movement. There is simply too much to process. Even counting the ebb and flow of the 23 dancers felt impossible at times.
The audience are audibly shocked and discombobulated as the dancers clamber over aisles, seats and audience like semi naked marauding ants then later scatter like ephemeral butterflies.
There may have been 10,000 claps at the end. It was the only standing ovation I’ve seen at M1F17.
My tribute to Charmatz- 10,000 Gestures in 60 words. One for each minute of the running time.
RED. SEQUIN. CIRCUS. GUTTURAL. PLAYFUL. CHEEKY. SWIMMERS. HARLEQUIN. BIKINI. SPEEDOS. BOILERSUITS. MASKS. GRACEFUL. FLUIDITY. FLEXIBILITY. DEXTERITY. JUMPING. LEAPING. GYMNASTICS. GOOSESTEPPING. SPLITS. INDULGENT. LUNACY. SKIPPING. KISS. GLISTENING. SHOUTING. CLAMMERING. DEAFENING. GAGGING. ASYLUM. SCREAMING. WRITHING. DRAGGING. GRABBING. DRAGGING. WRITHING. TWISTING. STILL. DARK. SLOW. AWAKENING. CHANTING. COUNTING. CLAMBERING. MARAUDING. SCRATCHING. TWITCHING. ANARCHIC. TRIUMPHANT. INQUISITIVE. INTENSE. SCISSORING. SCATTERING. STAGGERING.BALLETIC. MUSCULAR. PURE. SPINNING. SPLITS.
Until 15 July
Live Art Alive 