Summary
Mahler and Dance: Dance The Playhouse 5/5 Unrequited love, disenchantment with life, the irretrievable loss, through death, of children - on paper Rambert's triple bill of danceworks to Mahler song cycles seemed to ooze bleakness and melancholy. On-stage, however, this unstinting engagement with daily griefs proves invaluably moving: why not shed sudden tears when gripped by feelings of shared fears or experiences, triggered not just by the music but by choreography that - in each instance - encompassed gestures, body language, frozen movements, that rendered internal anguish evident, affecting?
Kim Brandstrup's Songs of a Wayfarer - a world premiere - had Thomasin Gulgec hunkering and rocking in sheer wretchedness as his beloved was swept up in the arms of another. Steven Scott's inspired wall of light-boxes glowed and brooded like a litmus of volatile emotions as Ana Lujan Sanchez swithered and dallied before dealing the final rejection that silhouettes Gulgec in loneliness.See the full content of this document
Extract
Either Way, You'll Weep
Yolanda Sonnabend's redesign of Darrell's Five Ruckert Songs blazes surprisingly vibrant colour across backcloth and raffish costumes, though The Woman (Angela Towler) is subtler in floaty apricot-peach. She's also thrillingly alive to the nuances of the emotional journey in this work, pushing through hurt and disappointment to a calm that reassures us all.
Tudor's Dark Elegies, set in 1937 to Kindertotenlieder, never loses its edge, with its harrowed women in drab frocks a...See the full content of this document
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