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Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Vaulting ambition again!


My first visit to the Theatre Nacional de Catalynya was almost frustrated by generous numbers of road works; an accident involving a motorcycle and general misplaced confidence. The first is par for the course; the second an everyday occurrence to which you rapidly get hardened given the suicidal approach to motoring in the cycle community and the third was a belief that money would be equal to results.

It was all the fault of my new (expensive) GPS.

I assumed that finding the National Theatre would be possible in a number of ways for which I didn’t need an exact address. A recently found guide to Barcelona was also in the car and that, assuredly would give me the information I required should I require it; which I didn’t expect to require.

The guide to Barcelona gave me a small picture of the façade of the theatre and the information that it was near Plaça de les Glòries but not exactly in it. For a GPS exactitude is everything, but I merely told (ah!) the machine to go to the Plaça de les Glòries and I assumed that I would be able to use the machine to find the nearest theatre when I got a little closer and, hey presto! I would be there.

Such assumptions are dangerous.

I made worse assumptions. I asked (ah!) the machine to give me a list of theatres and I assumed that the name of one I was given was near enough to the one I wanted and I told (ah!) the machine to navigate me there. I was wrong. I therefore told (ah!) the machine to take me to my orginal destination and then while stopped at traffic lights within sight of the facade I told (ah!) the machine to find the nearest parking. Which it did and I arrived. Early.

The parking to which I was directed only cost five euros (and believe you me, only five euros in Barcelona is virtually a gift) and I could have stayed there all night! The fact that I was at the theatre an hour and more early so I could give My Pupil his lesson is the only explanation I can find for being able to park in so exemplary a space!

The building itself is in the form of a post-modernist classical temple with rather squat modified Doric columns and the walls made of glass. It is a building made to impress with marble and classical structures but it does not invite. Yet again architects have produced a shrine or Mauseuleam whose imposing structure repulses the very people who should be attracted. Still the miniscule cheese roll in wholemeal bread with herb olive oil I had there was delicious

Any dance production that starts with a deafening roll of thunder in the darkness, uses music from The Saint Matthew Passion and ends with whale song is either hitching a ride on easy significant association or is very confident of its purpose to cope with cliché. The production I saw last night in the Theatre Nacional de Catalunya of “La Venus de Willendorf” directed by Iago Pericot had elements of both.

The eight strong company of four male and four female dancers was augmented by a living naked embodiment of the Venus of Willendorf who had the generous curves of the original stone figure and was a stage presence throughout the performance acting as a silent comment on the action of the dancers and finally the audience itself.

The performance opened with the dancers in twisted foetal positions in the darkness downstage. The back of the stage opened and in the growing light the Venus character slowly advanced and, as she passed along the line of figures they began to find themselves within their bodies. They slowly evolved into sentient creatures who explored their limbs and actions and their interaction with others. Two large table-like structures with a mirrored surface allowed a playfulness to motivate the characters while the mirror give them further opportunities to realize their development as they saw themselves.

Personal movement in space became a series of impingements on the space of others. I found the opening of the production dominated by gesture rather than dance with an amusing variety of movements which combined flowing figures with the jaunty break dance-like staccato hand gestures and body movement. The dancers used percussive effects by striking their own bodies and each other’s and by using growls and shouts.

The narrative of the piece developed into a series of power plays echoing the themes embodied in the music; rejection, isolation, conflict. The isolation of one of the female dancers allowed a powerful piece of concentrated mockery by the other dancers who also formed themselves into melded creatures that recalled the fantastic creatures of Bosch or Breughal. I found the look of the piece to be very much influenced by paintings, especially Flemish religious art where Northern Renaissance depictions of scenes of The Passion found their reflections in the movement of the dancers.
One effective episode suggested a form of The Last Supper where the two mirrored tables were set up end to end up stage and a Christ-like dictatorial character flanked by the rest of the dancers forced a series of mimetic movements and which ended up with his elation finding expression in a phallus formed by one of the female dancers’ arms thrust between his legs. His exclamation of “Espana!” at that moment seemed both comic and crass!

The reflections of ideas in the music worked throughout the piece so that loyalty, belonging, rejection, society, authority were all part of the rich melange of concepts informing the movement. A tie could represent society, clan, group and the action indicated the momentum of acceptance and expulsion.

Throughout the work the Venus figure made her stately and powerful presence felt as with hands of pendulous breasts she walked through the squabbling dancers combining power and grace as she progressed.

The climax of the piece came when the dancers emerged dressed in conventional modern clothes after the tights and t-shirts of their previous performances and, after a fashion walk into position facing each other we saw couples attracting and responding to their partners: gay, lesbian and straight they seduced each other discarding clothing in the process so that by the time that they reached and touched each other they were naked.

The disconcerting element in this display is that no matter how lascivious the glances, gestures and couplings of the characters there is a clear indication in the case of males of the extent of their arousal. It was therefore clear that the men although ostensibly enamoured by their partners remained passionately untouched!

I am well aware that this is a professional company performing a choreographed text, but if you go to the extent of full nudity then the flaccidity has to be taken as an intended comment on the act itself. And to me it made no sense.

The “love making” ended by one of each couple killing the other and then retreating from the murdered body. This could, I suppose be seen as a comment on the whole concept of the crucifixion and the clear juxtaposition of love and death. The Venus character walked slowly in front of the audience (the house lights up) and by her hard stare involving all of us in the perversion of what she stood for. And at that point she slowly walked up stage through the dead and the murderers and disappeared back into the light.

This was a production full of ideas many of which worked, but to me it looked like a work in progress with the need for the director to excise some of the more self-indulgent aspects and make the experience more muscular and focussed.

I enjoyed the piece and I look forward to more from this clearly talented company.

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