{DANCE} Reviews and previews
REVIEW ENCLOSURE 99: HUMANS Are we human or are we dancer? ●●●●●
The youngest female folds her body into a knot in the corner of the Perspex-fronted cage, slipping her head into the lap of the youngest male. ‘As you can see, this one is particularly flexible,’ explains the zookeeper, wryly. ‘And this one; well, we think he’s going to be a good breeder.’ A slightly older male begins to imitate one of the children in the crowd, to her delight. The rest of the pack are bored, listless and rained on. One of them begins a slapping, whirling movement around the sides of the cage, beating his palms against the glass, and slowly, the others pick it up, copying each others’ variations intently. When they reach us, they stare wide-eyed.
Janis Claxton has been here before: in 2008, she and three other dancers took over an area of Edinburgh Zoo for Enclosure 44, but this time she’s working with a far bigger pack. Five of her ‘human animals’ – the dancers moving wordlessly around a zoo enclosure, open to the public and on show from 10am-6pm every day – are from China, others from Holland, Australia and New Zealand. They’re constantly engaged in loose, improvised movement which tests the limits of their group and their bonds, and, given this year’s weather, has clearly put them under some very real strain too.
The dancers aren’t acting animal, exactly: even while their silence makes them seem more feral, the movements they find themselves in are still definitely human, but there’s something about the artificial division between them and us that keeps an audience made up of passers-by, amused children and bemused parents, staring right back. It calls to mind the routine barbarity of reality television; it also works as an uneasy commentary on some of Enclosure 99’s neighbours. (Kirstin Innes) ■ Edinburgh Zoo, 314 0350, until 28 Aug, 10am–6pm (last entry 5pm), entry with zoo ticket: £15.50 (£5 for children under 15 years).
L A V I T S E F
PREVIEW SRIYAH Ancient dance in a modern era
Studying for ten hours a day, six days a week for six years, the dancers at the Nrityagram school near Bangalore know that to truly absorb Indian classical dance takes time. The first student to emerge from the residential course, Surupa Sen graduated in 1996 and is now artistic director of the Nrityagram Dance Ensemble.
Along with two colleagues, Sen will be delivering solos, duets and trios created in the Odissi style. ‘The main body of it has been created for three dancers, and all of us have been dancing together for 19 years. So we have a synergy that’s different from having other people dance with us,’ she says.
One of the defining factors of Odissi – a 2000- year-old temple dance style revived just 65 years ago – is the ornate garments, head gear and make- up worn by performers. Does that help with Sen’s own personal preparation? ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘It takes a long time but I think it helps you become that other character. You feel beautiful, you look beautiful and you’re ready to occupy a different space inside and out.’ (Kelly Apter) ■ King’s Theatre, 473 2000, 26–29 Aug, 8pm (Sun mat 3pm), £12–£30.
42 THE LIST 25 Aug–22 Sep 2011
REVIEW LAST ORDERS Contemporary retelling of cannibal tale fails to set the blood pumping ●●●●● PREVIEW DROUGHT AND RAIN (RE-CREATION 2011) Giving voice to the pain of war
There is no end to the unpleasant images that choreographer and director Al Seed presents us with in this fetishistic modern retelling of the legend of Sawney Bean. Those familiar with the story of Scotland’s real or fictitious 16th century cannibal will find little to recognise in the mirrored set framed by coloured lights, the chaotic jazz and disco soundtrack. Or the lair where the soon-to-be- sacrificed walk an imaginary plank in animal head masks while Bean (Alex Rigg) twitches in gleeful anticipation from behind one-way plexiglass. There are moments here which are genuinely
arresting – Lina Limosani’s initial solo in tribal body paint, her licking, convulsing limbs reminiscent of a lizard or fish; the twisted dance of death between Sawney and one of his victims; the sharp ugliness of the slippery jerky choreography. But mostly it just seems that Seed wants to beat us about the head with images of humiliated and degraded humans and the sick pleasure their perpetrators take in having power over them. (Lucy Ribchester) ■ Traverse Theatre, 228 1404, until 28 Aug, times vary, £17–£19 (£12–£13).
In 1995, when Vietnamese choreographer Ea Sola created her original version of Drought and Rain, she cast elderly women who were once dancers in their youth. Due to circumstances – a war raging through their country – the women had swapped dancing shoes for guns, and only returned to the artform years later, when Ea Sola created a work to capture the human cost of conflict. Sixteen years later, those women are in their 90s,
some are dead, forcing Ea Sola to take a different approach for her re-creation of the piece. Having assembled her new cast, Ea Sola realised that not only did she have a group of elderly singers capable of matching the power of that original production – but that they too had been deeply involved in the war.
‘It was only after I gathered them together that I found out that during the war, they had gone to the front lines to sing and appease the wounded,’ she says. ‘It was a fact that profoundly touched me – their voice had been a weapon.’ (Kelly Apter) ■ King’s Theatre, 473 2000, 1–3 Sep, 8pm, £12–£30.