As the third part in an open-ended trilogy, Made of Space, created by the accomplished Barcelona-based duo Maria Campos and Guy Nader, pushes further (or higher) an ambitious examination of the principles of physics: matter and its motion through space-time, energy, force and the workings of nature. Precision Challenging in its abstract premise, yet open… Read more »
A funeral as the setting for the second dance piece in a trilogy is an intriguing departure point in this new creation by the choreographer Lali Ayguadé. iUanMi, like its predecessor Kokoro, is a contemporary dance piece for four performers that explores internal and external worlds and the transformative relationship between them. An enormous curtain… Read more »
It’s a likely sell out, but tickets are still available for Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s contemporary dance piece Fractus V at Barcelona’s dance space Mercat de les Flors next week/end (January 14th – 17th). I don’t mean to be patronising, but to see the choreographer in Barcelona for four dates in a dance space existing on… Read more »
Belgian choreographer Wim Vandekeybus’ 1987 dance piece What The Body Does Not Remember, at Sadler’s Wells, London today and tomorrow, is a work credited with radically transforming the arena of contemporary dance. But what does this mean to us now? 28 years on, its once highly-innovative association of physicality and high emotion, (untrained dancers stomping, running… Read more »
As the world economic balance shifts ‘eastward’ our Western-centric presumptions of the way things work is sinking into the sand. Contemporary dance is perhaps the most accessible art form able to embody and communicate these changes. Born in India and brought up in France, Shantala Shivalingappa (pictured above) trained in the strict discipline of classical kuchipudi… Read more »
At Montpellier Dance Festival June 27th and 28th … British dancer Akram Khan and Spain’s Israel Galván talk about their contemporary dance piece, Torobaka. The two were coaxed into a collaboration by Francesc Casadesús, the director of Barcelona’s contemporary dance space Mercat de les Flors, and admit that the prospect of combining their two highly-independent… Read more »
D’après une historie vraie (‘based on a true story’) is a contagiously joyful contemporary dance piece, a creation of the French choreographer Christian Rizzo. Born in Cannes in 1965, Rizzo’s interests are wide and varied: rock music, fashion design, visual art and, more recently, film and opera are all on his resume! Yet somehow he manages… Read more »
There’s something slightly aggressive about the title of Lloyd Newson’s verbose dance/theatre piece, on at Barcelona’s Mercat de les Flors this weekend. Like downloading 40 podcasts from BBC Radio 4’s Today news programme then listening to 10 minutes from the end of each, the acclaimed choreographer of award-winning ‘physical theatre’ troupe DV8 seeks to stimulate debate about… Read more »
This is the first time that Catalan choreographer Rafael Bonachela brings Sydney Dance Company to Barcelona, then London in December, where they are performing two pieces, 6 Breaths and LANDforms, both of which are set to the original, emotive scores of Italian Ezio Bosso. LANDforms, in which dancers confront the tough, beautiful Australian landscape & climate is an… Read more »
On a slick black stage, stabbed through the heart by a monolithic shard, dance troupe MAU terrified me with a tense, urgent, masterful piece with a throbbing, ritualistic score. You’ll never sleep again. In Birds with Skymirrors, Samoan choreographer Lemi Ponifasio deals with the big issues: our relationship to the environment and to each other, relating… Read more »
