NDT2
30 Jun 2009 in Dance & Drama, Highland
Empire Theatre, Eden Court, Inverness, 27 June 2009
NDT2 (photo - Chris Nash)
MUCH, NO DOUBT, to the relief of stagecrews all over Europe and the UK, the NDT2 2009 tour relied almost entirely on lighting for its special effects. Allied with the use of simple, monochromatic costumes, the emphasis lay where it should be, on the superbly trained young dancers.
It is hard to imagine a greater contrast from last year’s programme, almost overpowered by towering figures and dramatic costumes (‘Sleight of Hand’), windmills, snowfalls and a tray of gravel for ‘Mammatus’, and a ziggurat for ‘Dream Play’.
The evening started with ‘Offspring’, in which two somewhat distracting lasers accompanied a beautifully moving duet, shafts of white light evoked the gloom of a dusty barn on a sunny day as they illuminated a group of darting, meerkat-like dancers. A diagonal bandolier of spots was lowered for a solo before the lasers returned to encircle a superbly evoked foetal figure.
A male solo led to a male pas de quatre, all danced with a restless intensity before the end; a sudden, single, circle of bright light and an intake of breath. Choreographed by former NDT2 and now principal NDT1 dancer Lukas Timulak during the impending birth of his first child, ‘Offspring’ contained much to admire but the relentless display of the dancers’ brilliant technique was just too much; towards the end of the 22 minutes it was almost too tiring to watch.
The second work, ‘Gods and Dogs’, by NDT2 co-founder Jiri Kylian, showed a maturer understanding of pace while continuing to showcase the company’s gymnastic flexibility, speed and precision with some superfast staccato moves which purely took the breath away.
A glass bead curtain covered the back of the stage, swishing fast or swaying slowly with the dancers and the music in a visually arresting victory for simplicity. The high projection of a wolf loping slowly towards the audience was an unnecessary distraction but the bacteria-like white lights which crawled over and camouflaged the soloist at the end of the piece, accompanied by the swish of the glass curtain, burned a memorable, atmospheric image on the collective retina.
‘Minus 16′, made on NDT2 ten years ago, and last seen at Eden Court just before it closed for redevelopment, provided the night’s dessert. Ohad Naharin’s work is a perennial favourite with dance companies worldwide, due to a profusion of crowd-pleasing elements united around a meditation on what it is to be a dancer; accessible dollops of disco, techno, B-boying and circus skills, all set to a mashed mix of music including showtunes and surf guitar, lounge and Latin.
Boundaries between audience and company are blurred and gender is masked by a unisex costume of rabbinical black suits, white shirts and fedoras over grey singlets and shorts. The chair scene, set to the Hebrew melody ‘Ehad Mi Yodea’, part of a traditional text used to teach children during the Passover supper, is vividly impressive.
The sudden backbend with outstretched arms recalls Goya’s ‘The Execution of the Third of May’, the repeatedly prone figure stage left, the structure of a childrens’ game, the quasi-military chorus of voices, the clothes thrown in a heap; the cumulative effect gently tugs at the memory of the Holocaust and provides the necessary depth and substance as a continuo to the superficial flash and style of the framing segments.
The crowd was emphatically pleased; Eden Court is not much given to the full standing ovation. NDT2’s dancers deserved every minute of theirs for their superb technique and unstinting energy.
My only quibble with NDT2 is a lack of soul, a lack which is inseparable from their extreme youth and intensive working practice, the latter usefully outlined by Executive Artistic Director Gerald Tibbs in the post-show discussion. This reviewer was left longing even more than usual to see NDT1, the company to which many of NDT2’s dancers graduate at the still-tender age of 23 and where their talents ripen to the soulful full.
© Jennie Macfie, 2009
