The smell of food from Home Theatre’s restaurant drifts into the studio theatre completely by accident, effectively complimenting the location of this dance piece: a café and Jazz bar in New York. A dynamic group of six hip hop dancers blend physical theatre, clowning, acrobatics, and dance to electrify this underground and modish world. Calypso, Charleston, Electro, and Tango are all mixed up into a fruitful dance cocktail.
Part of France Now, a season at Home Theatre, Ballet Bar was choreographed and performed by Compagnie Pyramid. They were founded 13 years ago in Rochefort by a dedicated group of friends. As each record is laid on the bar’s extremely dusty gramophone, six group of friends (staff and customers at the Ballet Bar) respond with performances of different scenes and scenarios.
Stylish, sophisticated, and smooth, was the Ballet Bar set. Even if one of the characters hadn’t been on top of his cleaning duties. The black and white square pattern flooring went hand in hand with the symmetry of the set. When you saw the Ballet Bar sign next to the bar itself you kind of felt right at home. The lighting design was a delicate balance between a “quiet drink” kind of calmness and “bar fight” style chaos.
The physical language of the company’s choreography was layered with a plethora of ideas. Characters' movements were soft and steady one minute, then amusingly sudden and shocking the next. It was bizarre and playful, exploring various levels, pace, and directions. Dance motifs materialised organically from section to section. They used their whole bodies most of the time, finding numerous ways to present their characters in the space; utilising as much or as little of the space as they wanted. At one point, they just used their hands and arms. In another scene, there was amazing body-popping and locking in a solo number.
It began with the characters entering from in and around the audience, leaving no doubt we were more than welcome at the bar. It was funny when one character laid on some of the audience’s laps, another one hugged an audience member too. Immediately, you could tell how joyful and lovable they were as their idiot clowns. However, for me the change in music as a structure device to move to the next scene became a little repetitive after a while.
As well as the collective character of this group of guys/friends, you did have individual characters within the group possessing varying degrees of status. For example there were: the obsessive and serious clown (who always tried to clean the bar), the show off, the sensitive one, and the follower. After having a think, the interaction between characters was not as apparent as it could have been. Dance tricks such as: the helicopter, the head spin, and the worm definitely stood out - so did the choreographed bar fight scene.
When you engaged with the many stories told through dance, the comedy gags crept up out of nowhere. Now and then, the simplest of tasks, hilariously, could not be completed. No words were said and no words were needed. As my time in the theatre passed by, it’s like I had fallen down the Alice In Wonderland rabbit hole: the show became brilliantly peculiar, eccentric, and anarchic. I was under a spell listening to the soothing sound of static from the record player. There was an underlying sincerity to all of the dancers' clown-like performances and a focus which only comes from years of practice and performance experience. The stylised curtain call was a lovely way to round off the show and our night out at the Ballet Bar. It was a pleasure to watch. Very good.
Reviewer – Sam Lowe
on – 28/11/18
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