Great review from our German tour from Main Post – Schweinfurt
FEB 17, 2020:
The guest performance of NW Dance Project in the sold-out theater begins with a bang. The company from Portland (Oregon) had already introduced itself in November 2016 as part of the international dance gala “Dance is the Key”. The dancers lead them to success with their dancing skills and a visible desire to dance.
“You Are All I see” by choreographer Wen Wei Wang opens the evening. If the title sounds like a love song from the Great American Songbook – far from it. Rather, we are receiving deafening punk/metal sounds from David Frost. To this end, the dancers develop a kind of doomsday scenario, pictures of a world in which violence prevails.
Two men seize a woman who, after brief attempts to escape, freezes into a doll and then tries to free herself. In the background, despite violent resistance, a person becomes the game ball of three violent individuals. Metallic crunching, crackling noises, matching the expressive, ecstatic and robotic movements. “I create pictures, in which the audience can read their own stories,” says Wang. (I design pictures in which the audience can recognize themselves)?
A plea against collective paralysis in the fight against climate change
In “All’s Been Said”, (choreographer) Felix Landerer makes a plea against collective paralysis in the fight against climate change. Two men dressed in white and a woman meet in a barren landscape. Crippling silence, then a pounding noise. One of the dancers pulls on a polar bear mask and uses a microphone to speak to the audience: “If something disappears before your eyes, it is not a trick but a reality. Either you did not look properly or you do not want to know or They want to be sold for stupid.” Another dancer drags himself on all fours like an animal in a moving cage. Arduous, after many attempts, he manages to free himself and straighten up. The others look on, indifferent, motionless like statues.
The artistic director of the company Sarah Slipper created the choreography “MemoryHouse” for the colored sound painting music of the (film music) composer Max Richter. A plus point of the evening. For harmonic piano arpeggios, Andrea Parson and Franco Nieto gradually find a pas de deux, for which Sarah Slipper has developed a new dynamic and exciting movement vocabulary. After moments of cool defense, there are convincing scenes full of passion and tender devotion. But the two quickly counteract such great feelings: with their bizarre play with a white kitchen apron and a disturbing laugh.
“Le File Rouge” by Ihsan Rustem provides clear fun, to which a dancer in a striped clown shirt invites us in front of a closed curtain. A danced song revival is created with surprises, humor and slapstick. For “Ne Me Quitte Pas” there is a wonderful shadow pas de deux, two men celebrate Doris Day’s “Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps” and three dancers with bright red mouths confess “Non, je Regrette Rien” with Edith Piaf. Before all of this becomes too contemplative, hot sounds of mambo give the signal for rousing formation dances by the ensemble. With such a furious vortex, it goes to the final. While the audience had previously applauded each individual choreography with great applause, the large dance theater community is now celebrating its guests from Portland with a standing ovation, whistles of enthusiasm and storms of applause.
Original review (in German) HERE