Alessandro Sciarroni Your Girl
Hagit Yakira 2B
Kieran Sheehan Dance Theatre's Ballet People
More installation than dance piece, Your Girl still worked. It was an honest and moving piece that didn't try to be more than it was, and succeeded in its simplicity. Choreographer Alessandro Sciarroni challenged perceptions about taboos and acceptability via subtext and symbolism rather than an overt confrontation. Chiara Bersani was radiant; her confidence with being watched tested our beliefs about what is and isn't alright to look at. When she appeared bare-breasted, with the air of the vacuum cleaner blowing through her air, the moment was full of sensuality, and we realise that we never see this side of a person with a disability. Ideas about desire, vulnerability and intimacy were distilled to their essence, and were all the more moving for it.
In 2B, dancer/choreographer Hagit Yakira and dancer Takeshi Matsumoto took us on a ride of dance and dialogue about what it means "to be." The mix between playfulness and seriousness worked, and kept the audience's curiosity alive to whatever would come next. An easy chemistry between the dancers kept things human and watchable, and the choreography was highlighted by some beautiful lighting. On the downside, the work was slightly elusive- one has the sense that just as the piece was about to make a strong statement, the moment disappeared- and would have benefitted from a bit of shaking up.
Ballet People started out with a title that worried, and got progressively worse. The ideas were unsophisticated, and didn't add up to much more than a dance class gone wrong, with the psycho ballet teacher to match. It was a brave attempt by the dancers, but the choreography was rough, undeveloped and lacked a sense of phrasing. The live musicians were a treat to have on stage, and the music was lovely and very dance-able. However, the movement didn't live up to the music and ultimately disappointed.
Jobina Bardai
Italian Aerowaves artist Alessandro Sciarroni's Your Girl is a methodically simple, uncommonly resonant expression of the enigmatic spirit of romantic desire. Unfamiliarity with the source material (Madame Bovary) shouldn't prevent anyone from connecting with this big-little performance. The light is unflinchingly bright as radiant, pint-sized Chiara Bersani waits expectantly in a wheelchair downstage right. Meanwhile long-limbed dreamboat Matteo Ramponi sits distractedly atop a bundle of clothes upstage left, backed by three Rapunzel-like strings of tube socks. Calmly determined, Bersani makes her way to a vacuum-powered canister centrestage. ‘He loves me,' she says, or ‘He loves me not' as the machine sucks up, one at a time, six white sock ‘roses' plucked from her chest. Her anonymous white top and shorts are similarly surrendered. With self-conscious inevitability her adored one joins her, ambiguously declaring ‘I love him' before slowly stripping off gym clothes duly fed to the machine. (Wittily, his shorts require manual assistance.) Then, to a corny Italian pop ballad, the now-naked duo holds hands. Black out. Perfect. Maybe this clear-sighted examination of feeling and the aesthetics of disability wasn't ‘dance-y' enough. But, in the best sense, I didn't need more.
In 2B choreographer Hagit Yakira and the equally winning Takeshi Mastsumoto allow the games they play - move only when you blink, say, or the unbridled celebratory boogie that follows verbal challenges to be a better this or a brilliant that - to tip over into seriousness. Now they stagger about headfirst. Next they pinch each other's nostrils in a simulated underwater struggle for breath. Sometimes they risk too-cuteness. But their friendly blend of ideas and kinetics combines likeable daring with a warmly human charm.
Two outa three ain't bad. For the latter turn to Kieran Sheehan Dance Theatre's Ballet People. Nine barefoot dancers in loose white t-shirts over leotards and (save for the lone male) hot pink legwarmers flip between floppy, jerky or mechanically conformist moves to Craig Adam's urgently live neo-classical score for seven musicians. Who was the peevish, perplexed blonde in the fake fur coat, or the ginger-haired interloper declaring her imminent crucifixion? Who cares? Ambitious, yes. But also embarrassingly naïve.
Donald Hutera