Urban Shocker
Doyenne
Fun how the red balls in Brookfield Place steal the arc created by the galleria roof, twirl it around a couple of times, and are suddenly gone - up, up and away ...
Nederlands Dans Theatre on Friday night were thrilling, mostly - as engaging as Lipsynch. I've been to just three events this year, and two were standouts.
I thought that the middle piece - Jiri Kylian's Wings of Wax - was less effective than the two that bookended it, though - and audience response was less enthusiastic. In fact, I found my attention wandering from the dancers to the tree suspended upside down above them in the final few minutes. It seemed less fresh than the first dance ( Shoot The Moon by Lightfoot Leon ) and the stunning The Second Person by Crystal Pite which ended the evening.
The spinning set, consisting of three darkly Goreyesque wallpapered rooms, for Shoot The Moon reminded me of the spinning set for the mime sequences in the COC's Rusalka. Five dancers, three rooms with doors and windows linking them, voyeuristic glimpses of troubled relationships playing out, everything turning, turning ...
Crystal Pite's The Second Person was the highlight of the night. It's difficult to describe the emotional connection that it created with the audience. None of it was a particularly literal telling of anything we would recognize as a storyline. There was a tiny puppet at the beginning - manipulated by an entire crowd of dancers in suits moving across the stage beneath a stormy sky - and by the end the puppet was a person coming to life and creating ripples of movement among the humans arrayed behind it. And, in between, everything! Not a linear narrative, for sure. A great ensemble piece.
Nederlands Dans Theatre on Friday night were thrilling, mostly - as engaging as Lipsynch. I've been to just three events this year, and two were standouts.
I thought that the middle piece - Jiri Kylian's Wings of Wax - was less effective than the two that bookended it, though - and audience response was less enthusiastic. In fact, I found my attention wandering from the dancers to the tree suspended upside down above them in the final few minutes. It seemed less fresh than the first dance ( Shoot The Moon by Lightfoot Leon ) and the stunning The Second Person by Crystal Pite which ended the evening.
The spinning set, consisting of three darkly Goreyesque wallpapered rooms, for Shoot The Moon reminded me of the spinning set for the mime sequences in the COC's Rusalka. Five dancers, three rooms with doors and windows linking them, voyeuristic glimpses of troubled relationships playing out, everything turning, turning ...
Crystal Pite's The Second Person was the highlight of the night. It's difficult to describe the emotional connection that it created with the audience. None of it was a particularly literal telling of anything we would recognize as a storyline. There was a tiny puppet at the beginning - manipulated by an entire crowd of dancers in suits moving across the stage beneath a stormy sky - and by the end the puppet was a person coming to life and creating ripples of movement among the humans arrayed behind it. And, in between, everything! Not a linear narrative, for sure. A great ensemble piece.
