May 2019 – Live Art Alive

GRAND FINALE

Choreography and Music by Hofesh Schechter

Performed by Hofesh Schechter Company

HOME

Hofesh Schechter has created a world both nightmarish and blissfully optimistic in Grand Finale. His latest work is defiant, mischievous and brutally beautiful. Part gig with a small orchestra onstage; dance and theatre merge with the same seamless fluidity that allows monolithic slabs to both create a sense of endless time and club land rave scenes. Grand Finale is both an anguished salute to lives lost in destruction and war, and two fingers held up to the doomsday predictors. The musicians are integral to the flow of the piece. Ever present though always on the move, they are formally attired and one even sports a life jacket as if to allude to the musicians who played on as Titanic sunk.

We can all dance to the same beat but sometimes we may hear a different unique beat in the same music and so we separate as individuals and respond in a myriad of ways. So it is with Grand Finale, Schechter’s dancers come together and replicate movements, their bodies harmonizing in unison and at another times they clash and jar with seemingly murderous intent.

Perhaps Schechter‘s greatest skill is in how he uses dance and music as unifiers. There is a universal commonality in the throbbing beat that seems to connect with one’s own body – the movements you see on stage can feel as though they are simultaneously experienced in your own muscle memory. Moments from rave scenes feel intensely familiar then flow into Celtic dance or Maori Haka or riotous dance to klezmer music. This is modern yet ancient, ageless and current.

The blend of sound and light by Schechter and lighting designer Tom Visser is beautiful. Beams of light illuminate upturned faces as though kissed By the sun. Grey gloomy mist can signify Dawn or the dry ice of a nightclub. At other times it seems like there is the red dust of African plains which may be the fires of Dante’s Inferno. They are glorious playful moments as hundreds of bubbles drift down like snowflakes unto the battlefields of No Man’s Land at Christmas time. Here figures dance like marionettes and later with gay abandon to Franz Lehár’s Merry Widow Waltz as worries are cast aside culminating in a chilling end piece as a pile of bodies grows at the side of the stage and is silently saluted.

Scenes start to get smaller and more specific as they fragment into tableaux scenes that echo snapchat or Instagram poses. Figures embrace, party or pray as the dance slows down and the orchestra gets softer and starts to fade. Are these open mouthed figures aghast in horror or yawning with ennui as everything changes and yet still remains the same?

Grand Finale 22nd – 25th May 2019

Hofesh Schechter Company

Images by Rahi Rezvani

WHEN IT BREAKS IT BURNS

Immersive Theatre, Promenade, Site Specific, Uncategorized

Created/Performed by ColetivA Ocupação

Directed by Martha Kiss Perrone

CONTACT

Moss Side Millennium Powerhouse

ColetivA Ocupação are the real deal in every sense. Performers, creatives, activists, educators who vividly bring to life their personal experiences of occupying their schools in São Paulo to protest the Brazilian government’s proposed decimation of educational resources in 2015/2016. They are full of exuberance and boisterous passion and their mantra is “to occupy is to resist.”

Massing in the garden courtyard of Millennium Powerhouse the audience is suddenly led into a gym hall where chairs are scattered through the space and some are already occupied. Music, lighting and the intensity of the seated performers ramp up the sense of unease and palpable tension. As the action flares up it is clear that this is no easy ride sitting in a theatre observing a performance. The choreography ensures the audience members are in the thick of the action and occasionally at physical risk of the odd bruise. This is an intense immersive experience that feels utterly authentic and at times genuinely both scary and exhilarating.

Recreating what it was like to scale the walls Diadama School in 2015 they create a human wall which each triumphantly scales. As an audience we get to witness their excitement, their bravery and their fears as police surround the schools and many are dragged off. These were children, young people chasing police intimidation, beatings and tear gas. As they later talk to us in small groups recalling personal experiences it is clear that these vibrant young people have lived through life-changing experiences.

The sheer physicality of this performance and its riotous risk taking evokes passion and sheer admiration at its bravery and its hope. As we are moved off chairs and jostled as they creates barricades and banners these performers are setting alight a real desire to harness that youthful passion and make change happen. Whether it is in schools in Brazil or it is Environmental protests across the world…

Let’s occupy the schools. Let’s occupy the streets. Let’s occupy the theatres. Let’s occupy everything.

CONTACT 8th/9th May 2019

ColectivA Ocupação

Part of Resistance in Residence, a British Council programme.
A collaboration between Contact and Transform.
Made with support from Casa do Povo, Forma Certa and Converse.
Supported by British Council and The University of Manchester.
Image credit: Mayra Azzi

ONE

Small Theatres, Uncategorized

Bertrand Lasca and Nasi Voutsas

HOME

Two men. A very tall ladder. A conundrum. This is of course the return of Bertrand Lesca and Nasi Voutsas as they return to HOME with ONE, the final part of a trilogy that includes the brilliant EUROHOUSE and PALMYRA. Polarisation, provocation and dogged resolve are continuing themes, played out with their particular brand of disturbingly dark clowning and winsome charm as they invite collusion from the audience. We have choices. It’s clear. We can literally throw shit at each other, remain paralyzed in time or we can take a leap of faith together and hope in a better future.

As with their previous work Bert and Nasi use elements of what maybe their own personal relationships with each other to make provocative statements about contemporary politics. A Frenchman and a Greek who met in Scotland their work is especially resonant in our world of Brexian madness. With Nasi up a very high ladder and Bert at the bottom pleading, cajoling and finally becoming threatening, I’m starting to feel worried and rightly so. I’m worried about Nasi and Bert. I’m worried about relationships in general. I’m worried about the Northern Ireland border. I’m worried about Brexit. I’m worried about world peace… Nasi is still up the ladder. Bert is playing Imagine by John Lennon. Bert is imploring the audience for assistance.

Finally they sit at either end of a table. They could be a couple trying to resolve their differences at the kitchen table or they may be politicians in a boardroom either way there is both a reluctance to engage or to walk away.The push-pull of a relationship at breaking point is being played out and the ramifications of what will happen if one of them leaves or stays brutally apparent. Bert’s message is clear – I can leave but if I do I won’t be silenced I will be a thorn In your side. I will not just disappear.

Lesca and Voutsas are masters of their art. Their sense of comic timing, pathos and charm are reminiscent of another age – and double acts like Laurel and Hardy, yet their work is sharply focused on modern issues. With a skillful use of simply staying in a moment of stillness to create a protracted discomfort or ramp up tension, they create complex productions with the apparence of absolute simplicity.

Their childlike bickering has the sinister undertones of politicians shouting each other down in parliament. As they invite the audience to collude as in previous shows we can choose to encourage an act of destruction, stay in a cycle off unremitting paralysis or take a leap of Faith and engage in the possibility of a better future. It would of course seem like a no-brainer but three show in for them and no sign of a Brexit solution for us, then like Nasi and Bert I’m still hopeful but I’m getting tired too.

HOME Wed 8th – Fri 10th May 2019

Bert and Nasi

RICHARD III

Large Theatres

Written by William Shakespeare

Directed by John Haidar

Shakespeare’s tale of the “undigested and deformed lump” that is his Richard III is considerably tweaked in this version by John Haidor for Headlong. Here we see a man more emotionally stunted than physically restricted by his disability. Tom Mothersdale delivers a Richard whose twisted body is as fluid as his nature is mercurial. The hall of mirrors that dominates the set serves as judge and jury to Richard’s lack of conscience and reflects back to the audience as a means of drawing us into this tale of political greed, narcissistic ambition and false news.

Mothersdale manages to repulse and charm in equal measure. His capacity for brutal acts and honeyed words is that of a true sociopath or charming manipulator. Moments of visceral violence as he bites his victims with the suddenness of a deadly spider sit uncomfortably alongside humour as he mischievously addresses the audience close up or prances with a makeshift crown like a gleeful child ransacking the dressing up trunk. For all his cunning and remorseless violence there is the vulnerability of a child who recognizes his mother is ashamed of his twisted body and repulsed by his twisted nature. Director Haidar ensures that we see this wounded child who has long ago decided that if he cannot have the love and admiration of others, he will command their hate and fear. Mothersdale captivates throughout in what is a truly demanding role. Rarely off stage he is never less than electrifying especially in the second act when demented by jeering ghosts he sees his fleeting success melt away on the battlefield. Bloodied and mud stained he smears mud across the reflected ghosts as if to wipe out any hint of his own wrongdoings.

Chiara Stephenson has designed a set that is gloomy and forbidding in its grey ramparts and dungeons but cut through with reflective mirrored archways. These arches allow actors to move rapidly between scenes while also creating depth to the set as the ghosts appears behind them and the audience is reflected in them looking at ourselves just as Richard examines himself in these multiple looking glasses.

Haidar makes use of every possible dramatic element that can be drawn from this gothic castle. Stony grey yet pulsating with life and bloodied by death this is a building that echoes its history in every mirrored arch reflecting lives once there and now just ghosts in the fabric of the building. The use of light and sound by Elliot Griggs and George Dennis provide striking flourishes that give the murders and battles scenes slashes of colour and sound that evoke video game violence- perhaps to suggest Richards own childlike lack of awareness of the real consequences of his actions. If at times elements appear overplayed or exaggerated they encapsulate Shakespeare’s original exaggeration of the real man. Whether you love it or not the impact of the attention seeking design elements and directorial flourishes are as in your face as Richard himself.

This feels a very fresh and timely revisiting of Richard III. There is a truly monstrous quality to this character in his relentless quest for political power. The wily cunning off an ambitious man who exalts in having neither pity love or fear is a chilling reminder of some of our politicians who make decisions for us based on their own fragile narcissistic egos and lust for power. Like Richard they strut across the world stage daring us, the audience, in how much we will allow them to destroy before we revolt and them down. Personally there are quite a few political anti heroes I would love to see buried under a carpark in Leicester!

Headlong

HOME 30 April – 4 May 2019

Images by Marc Brenner