Ultima Vez 'Spiegel'
Performance Reviews || Sunday, 18 March, 2007
Ultima Vez are currently one of the longest running contemporary dance companies in the world with over 20 years under their collective belt. That experience shows as they present their latest work to the UK and deliver the classy, aggressive dance we have come to expect.
'Spiegel' is Wim Vandekeybus's 'retrospective' on those twenty years and features sections from some of his best known creations all seamlessly blended together into a one hour and thirty minute flashback of high energy physical theatre and brick throwing.
If 'Spiegel' has a narrative structure then it escaped me but I didn't really care because this is a work where you can just sit back and enjoy both the madness and the tenderness of the nine dancers as they wind their way through one of the most impressive physical theatre resume's in dance.
As you watch the movement sequences unfold you can't help but recognise a lot of the stylised jumps, catches, spins and floor work that have become a signature part of many of today's companies movement repertoire. Only if you know the recent history of dance well enough will you know that Ultima Vez are responsible for providing almost all of that particular type of stylised physical theatre and they are one of the best proponents of it.
The partnering in particular is where the company truly shines. Lifts, catches and interchanges are executed with tremendous energy and precision with little concern for making pretty shapes. Movement for this company is about functional economy because the ninety minute run time is done almost flat out so who has the time or the inclination to turn out the leg and point that foot.
Watching Ultima Vez is an exciting experience because you can see everything at work, the dancers, the choreography and the music, all of it unfettered by overbearing pretension.
One of the company's most famous sequences is here to enjoy for all of those either too young or unfortunate enough to have missed it in the past. I am of course talking about, what Article19 have taken to calling, the brick lobbing sequence.
Even after 20 years and several viewings it still stuns me. The precision and timing required to throw the house brick sized lumps of stone around on a stage with nine dancers on it and not kill someone. The whole section lasts about ten minutes and this alone is worth the price of entry.
'Spiegel' is a solid reworking of the best of several works from one of the world's best dance companies. As a narrative piece it makes no sense at all but that is, for me, irrelevant. Purchase your ticket and enjoy some of the best dancers in the business doing physical theatre the way it was meant to be done, they did invent it after all.
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