As The UK is being stifled under our second lockdown, the Arts world are putting more and more material online to keep us engaged and hopefully entertained until we can safely return to the venues in person.
Here, a collaboration between Headspace Dance Company and Luca Silvestrini of Protein Dance, has been uploaded to make a beautiful double bill of two complimentary works. The first was their 2012 production of 'After The Interval' which was followed up in 2014 with the predicatbly titled 'Before The Interval'.
Both pieces were 30 - 40 minutes long, and used only three dancer / performers. In fact this was dance-theatre more than just simply contemporary ballet: here the performers also needed to act, interact and speak dialogue too. These elements of the both productions made them far more engaging and relatable, as well as eased our understanding of the choreography. Accessibility was the name of the game, making these pieces perhaps unique, very witty, clever, and extremely watchable.
In 'After The Interval' the three performers (Christopher Akrill, Charlotte Broom, Clemmie Sveaas) start by taking their bows, and then take an audience Q+A into the dressing room with them as they reminisce and bicker over roles played, technique, rehearsals processes, how they found the characters, what it means to be a dancer, etc etc.. it's somehow very real, and yet the whole is funny and hugely satirical.
The lighting though, at least in this recording, lets them down. It leaves them in the semi-dark or shadow for a lot of the time and when they are performing on a bare stage with only themselves to break the black, they needed more.
The second piece, 'Before The Interval', doesn't start where the first one left off as you might imagine, but instead takes us back to before 'After The Interval', in a strange time-hop kind of way, since we are clearly after 'After The Interval' in many respects. It's odd, and just as long as you don't spend too much time trying to understand the title and its relationship with the first piece, you'll be fine.
Here, a slightly different threesome (Christopher Akrill and Clemmie Sveaas again but this time with Jonathan Goddard) take us through - after their introductions and explanations as to why it's not the same threesome - their aspirations for the future, their career paths, their thoughts, spill the beans, sometimes quite hilariously, telling us also their expectations of us, the audience. - all this done, for the most part, whilst moving / dancing.
Once again this piece is completely different, strangely engaging, abolsutely accessible, and isn't really a dance at all. It's also much funnier than the first piece. More satirical, more off-the-wall. The choice of music in this piece I enjoyed more than the first piece too, although I did feel that the style and rhythms of the music chosen weren't as fully exploited as well as they could have been.
As with the first piece, the lighting was the most disappointing feature of this production, leaving cast in semi-darkness and shadow for much of the piece. Again played on an empty black stage.
Three - sorry four - extremely talented performers, since it required a particular style of presentation which used irony and satire in a very real way; and so not only did they need to be talented copntemporary dancers (they were), they also needed to be able to act and be convincing in this style too. (they were). Two very fun and clever pieces, making an enjoyable hour's viewing.
Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 11/11/20
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