Ricochet Dance Productions
Performance Reviews || Monday, 23 October, 2006
Experimental dance is alive and well and Ricochet appear to be embracing it with gusto for their current touring works 'Real Deal' by Germany's Jan Pusch and 'Elsewhere' created by Wally Cardona from the United States.
'Real Deal' is the latest in a long line of work this year to include a hefty amount of spoken acting from the dancers, mostly from guest artist Rick Bland, intermingled with both rehearsed choreography and improvised movement. We know some of the movement is improvised because the dancers tell us that it is, don't you just love it when the dancers get to speak?
This reviewer will freely admit to being completely dense when it comes to this kind of choreography. I never seem to be able to 'get' what's going on or why but it hardly seems to matter with a work like this. The movement is sharp and superbly executed by the company, (Ben Ash, Robin Dingemans, Karen Fisher-Potisk and Lizzy LeQuesne). It especially comes alive during the duets where you can simply enjoy the movement as the dancers indulge themselves in their craft.
It's always been the case, for me at least, that works involving a lot of improvisation and 'soud-scapes' instead of a solid piece of music tend to be a little disjointed and jarring. The work doesn't flow easily from one section to another and it starts to grate near the end, probably because we realise, as an audience, that the work isn't really taking us anywhere. The dialogue, mercifully, is free of expletives and trite social/sexual references.
'Elsewhere' continues the theme of mystifying expressionism and introduces several large pieces of wood into the mix that the dancers manipulate throughout the work. The company are joined in this endeavour by the always excellent Rahel Vonmoos.
The aforementioned wood is shifted around the space forming both barriers and platforms for the dancers to interact with for reasons past understanding. Again this writer is completely puzzled when presented with this type of choreographic mechanism so when you push past it and focus on the movement it becomes easier to enjoy.
As with the previous piece the dancers performance is impeccable, it's all angular arms and random spurts of choreography as the dancers navigate the space accompanied, once again, by a sound scape instead of music (the audience is given a long informative dialogue on how to take care of their lawn). The ever present planks of wood follow them around wherever they go. 'Elsewhere' is a good choreographic exercise, particularly valuable to dance students, but as with the previous piece it leaves you feeling a little bit cold when it's over.
As one half of an evening show either of these pieces would be a good choreographic study but together they ask a lot of the audience's patience and a more general gathering, one not filled with dance professionals and students as it was for this show, may struggle to maintain their attention. Perhaps for future tours these works could find a more suitable partner for the evening to balance things out.
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