Theatre
DANCE
SCOTTISH DANCE THEATRE
Edinburgh Festival Theatre, Tue 14 May
It may be Just down the M9. but Scottish Dance Theatre's jOurney from Dundee to Edinburgh has been a long one. Or more specifically from the Rep to the Festival Theatre. In its rehearsal studios at the Tayside theatre. artistic director Janet Smith has been plugging away at her company — bringing in new choreographers. expanding the repertOire — until finally. SDT is ready for its big debut at Scotland's principal dance venue. And as you would expect from this ever-blossoming company. the programme is fresh and eclectic.
Janet Smith's High Land premiered last year to rapturous applause. critical acclaim and much laughter. Her witty look at Scotland and its idiosyncrasies covered everything fron‘ midges to the Clearances. via Nessie and drunken ceilidhs. A definite crowd-pleaser. Smith's creation is exactly the kind of work contemporary dance needs to Wldell its audience. Then. once they've got y0u hooked . . . they send you reeling With the latest offering from one Jan De Schynkel.
Last seen in tnese parts winning the Peter Darrell Choreography Award and
DANCE
THE CHOLMONDELEYS & THE
FEATHERSTONEHAUGHS
Seen at The Place, London. Playing Edinburgh Festival
Theatre, Thu 16 May 000
London-based choreographer. Lea Anderson and Adventures In Motion Pictures founder Matthew BOLirne's combined companies are back with more challenges to conventional sex roles. Design — and death - are the unifying factors of 3. Anderson's newest work for both groups. In three twenty- minute slices of monstrous. gender-bending spectacle she extends the surface grotesgueiy of her last piece Smrthereens. Part one has ten dancers in wigs. clowniin make-up and lollipop-coloured dresses skipping, stalking and yanking each other abOLit. It's like fright night in a lurid-hued nursery full of exclamatory-mouthed Baby Janes. Innocence seems even longer-lost in part two. Here the cast. in itilentical cabaret dominatrix chic. negotiates four giant bands of elastic. Their masturbatony self-displays and spidery. pseudo-Sapphic couplings lend a brazen. fetishistic spin to the mechanics of lust. The third. and least original. section spotlights dancers as 7ombies with vile. Joker-ster grins. Only the protracted
creating She /s As He Eats. the Belgian wunderkind is back with yet another intriguing work. Daddy /'m Not Iii/ell. Drawing inspiration from a plethora of
sOurces — Sophocles' Oedipus The King.
the paintings of Francis Bacon and Bach's St Matthew Passion — the work continues De Schynkel's fascination with human relationships. this two focussing on a father and son. That said. don't walk in looking for a story: this is a deeply poetic work which con‘pels. entertains and confuses in equal measure.
EXI )H thENTAl.
Having a ball: fresh and eclectic
‘I'n‘ not afraid of narrative. but
somehow I always find it Iiiititing because
:t's only giving n‘y view: one ll‘rhd. one linear ne‘irrativeI says De SClty'lthil. ‘So I try to keep things as universal as
pr. ssible. with strong r'l‘ith-S peopie can relate to. It‘s difficult because narhen you try to move away from a narrative. you either make another one or it becon‘es incomi)rel‘iensible. ‘.'."".I(Ilt l l‘ope this
do 3sn't. I try for the other option: to incite the audience to start th'nking. then they get :hvolved and 'i‘ake the ;()iiritey' wt.“ you' 'Keliy Apter.
STARTING POINT: ZERO Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, Fri 17 May, then touring
mesmerism of Symbolic white light hints at self—awareness and
redemption.
Working with designer Simon Corder and the dense sounds of onstage musicians Steve Blake and Billy Surgeoner. Anderson uses the stage like a canvas. But she's decadent aboot decadence. 3 ultimately feels all dressed up ‘."‘.’|Ill nowhere to go. It's a visual feast. though not necessarily a
filling one. IDonald Huteral
Two years of research just to make it all up
Writing theatre l)l’(3‘\.’l(}‘."/ES is relatively straiglitfor‘.'.'ar:t; you
discuss a production in relation to narratiye. theme. style and
genre. But ‘.'.’ll£‘it if a performance lacks these :r.ialities’? \IVIIOII
what happens on the night is as much of a mystery to the
artists involved as it is to the audience?
This is the case '.'rith Stt’rr't‘ing Point: Zero. Actors; tone being t
a commedia dell'arte performer.. singers. Ja// olk musicians
and media workers combine 'mprovisaticn skzlls to create
pieces of unplanned live art. forgotten by the next eyening's
performance when the process starts all over again Glasg(>'-.'r's the \IVorking Party has spent tl‘e last t‘.°.'o years
All dressed up but nowhere to go
66 THE LIST i) 2):”) Ma, 70",?
researching iinproVisation. Connectioi‘s ‘.'.'i‘..h accaiined (BXIXBTIIIIOIIHI: practitioners Eugenio Barba and Jer/y (‘irotox'xski highlights the company's pro-occur)ation with the creattoi‘. of art rather than the selling of .t. 'lt's to do with the process itself.' s; y's artistic director. Benito Plassmann. Its not a product which is {)I'O'HOIilltfd. put on the shelf and ready to be bought off the internet.’
As to what to expect. expect nothing. Go with an open mind and be prepared t > witness fresh. innoyatiye art that you be as much a pait of as the artists. ‘lheie's going to h :- some good llhlSlC. some stories told. some beautiful settings and llllt)l't)‘.»f§£ttl()ll.' says Pl; ssmann. But what exactly 's going to happen. it‘s impossible to say". (Mererizl \"Jilliamsi
MODERN CLASSIC DEATH AND THE MAIDEN
The Arches, Glasgow, Wed 15, Fri 17—Sat 18 May
Nuremberg used to be an innocuous German town. but it acquired a tibigtiity it'll never shake off. as the place where Nazism was brought to trial. It's an extreme demonstration of how old sins really do cast long shadows.
The action of Ariel Dorfman's play isn‘t given a specific time or setting. but stems from his experiences under the Chilean regime of Augusto Pinochet. currently under a rather comfortable version of house arrest for his crimes against humanity. A woman encounters the man she believes was instrumental in the systematic torture she suffered fifteen years age. under a now defunct dictatorship.
Chile reception
What follows is a powerful examination of the moral comi.)lexiti<->s underlying the driving forces of guilt and revenge.
‘Dorfman's deliberate ambiguity on the play's issues is very important.‘ says the productions director. Lorne Campbell. ‘ls Roberto a sadistic torturer. or Just another innocent. caught up in the horrors of the dictatorship? Dorfman asks the audience to judge the action and characters on a rational rather than an emotional level. You can. in principle. always say that a line has to be drawn under the ev 3nts of the past and people must move on, but there's always a human dilemma which means it's never going to be that easy."
Can any of us ever really forgive and forget? IGareth Davies)