Review by Georgina Coburn
Signs, Games And Messages, Hebrides Ensemble and Scottish Dance Theatre
8 Nov 2006 in Dance & Drama, Highland
Community Theatre, Fortrose, 3 November 2006
Alexander Janiczek
HEBRIDES ENSEMBLE and Scottish Dance Theatre’s co-production was a constant reminder of the joy of pure sound and movement in live performance.
Featuring music by contemporary composers Arvo Pärt, György Kurtág and Luciano Berio and 20th-century composers Roussel, Poulenc and Stravinsky, the programme of challenging short pieces completely engaged mind and senses.
The opening section of Kurtág’s ‘Signs, Games and Messages’, ‘Virag az Ember’ (Flowers We Are) was sublime, with only the barest suggestion of sound from the strings; violin, viola and cello conveying beautifully the fragility and “transience of human life.”
Like the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, Kurtág’s music displays a deep understanding of the beauty and simplicity of sound, influenced by medieval rhythm and the contemplative, devotional quality of plainchant.
This was illustrated by the third section, ‘Ligatura y’, which introduced the audience to dancers’ James Macgillivray and Victoria Roberts. The choreography by Uri Ivgi and Johan Greben titled ‘In the Middle of the Moment’ incorporated Part’s beautiful ‘Pari Intervallo’.
Staged within a simple square flanked by the musicians of the Hebrides Ensemble, this was dance immediately and intimately accessible. From first contact with the space, pacing the square uneasily, both dancers conveyed an amazing range of movement from writhing and rigid to turning languid caress.
The relationship between the two was a thoroughly modern Pas de Deux, devoid of the romance we equate with classical forms but utterly and exquisitely grounded. The contact of intersected movement, two separate forms that stand apart, push away and strain to influence each other in tortured fluidity was breathtakingly sensual and awkwardly human.
Poulenc’s ‘Sonata for Clarinet and Bassoon’ (1922) gave the audience the opportunity to hear a rare pairing of instruments, with standout performances from Yann Ghiro and Julian Roberts.
Hebrides Ensemble is a dynamic chamber group choosing varied and provocative music that is a wonderful introduction to modern and contemporary composition. The possibilities for mixed media performance are very exciting indeed, and I hope that this aspect of performance will continue to be explored.
The second half of the performance, Stravinsky’s ‘The Soldier’s Tale’, was heightened by Alexander Janiczek’s violin and mesmerising percussion by Joanne McDowell.
Reflecting a wide range of musical influences, from militaristic march and processional to waltz, tango and pasodoble, this concert suite would also have made for a fascinating reinterpretation by Scottish Dance Theatre.
At times discordant, hypnotic and circus-like, a parade of Zeitgeist from 1918, ‘The Soldier’s Tale’ remains modern and relevant in its musical interpretation of Faustian myth.
As the soul of the violin gave way to the syncopated final rhythm, then erased into black, I felt I was not alone in wanting to see and hear more from the Hebrides Ensemble and Scottish Dance Theatre in co-production.
© Georgina Coburn, 2006
