MAYFEST: moving music and electrically-charged & ever-changing dance
Imagine two magnets: pushed together one way, opposites attract, but pull them apart and attempt to put the other poles together, and it’s impossible. Why? A theoretical physicist, like the famed Richard Feynman, might find reason in forces and motion, but many of us will fail to empathise with particles if we’re unfamiliar with them: ‘when you explain a why, you have to be in some framework that allows something to be true. Otherwise, you’re perpetually asking why.’
Echoing the curiosity and cacophony of Feynman’s reaction, and with his wise words as a thematic frame, a creative collective comprised of composer Will Gregory, choreographer Caroline Bowditch, and conductor and co-director Charles Hazlewood have created an epic orchestral work. Performed at Bristol Old Vic as part of Mayfest by the British Paraorchestra the performance is proof that music moves in many ways. Here, the choral voices, percussion, and violins aren’t confined to an orchestra pit: on the Bristol Old Vic stage, with light bulbs dotted above us, voices reverberate and a double bass dances, blurring the line between instrument and musician, dancer and audience, and music and movement.
The freely expressive choreography and Gregory’s powerful score unfold in pockets of movement and music that punctuate the space and move freely, lead by four physical performers, through us, and, most impressively, make us feel comfortable to be part of it. There’s no forced participation; you’re free to move around and form your own experience, and as such, you may miss moments as instruments and performers and other people move too, but the music is moving wherever you are, and that’s the intimate power of the piece.
Imagine musicians, instruments, performers, and people like you and me pushed together in one place: that’s The Nature of Why, and it’s magnetising.
Fleur Darkin’s Velvet Petal for Scottish Dance Theatre is an androgynous, drug-fuelled-feeling orgy of dance and adolescence. Performed at the intimate Trinity Fyfe Hall as part of Mayfest, it’s a theatrical thrill of electronica, witty choreography, and fine performances that loses its way a little in its own chaos.
Influenced by the provocative photography of Robert Ma pplethorpe and the lifecycle of the monarch butterfly, the choreography is evocative of both: clothes come off, intimate physicality unfolds on a mattress, and a lot of the movement is characterised by a visceral beat reminiscent of the buzzing vibration of a butterfly’s wings. Darkin’s choreographic voice is confident, and the dancers echo it with their own carefree flair. Harry Clark’s twisting floor-work, Pauline Torzuoli’s expressive torso, and James Southward’s effortless extensions are particularly impressive, but the piece is most powerful in its ensemble, especially when it’s wild and euphoric and pulsing with the electric musical accompaniment.
Electrically-charged and ever-changing, from the costumes to the couples, there are also live voiceovers from Harry Clark and Adrienne O’Leary that philosophise on photography – ‘everything looks better in black and white’, even if Emma Jones’s bright lighting vibrantly rebels – and change. The two contrast each other: photography is the artificial capturing of the perfect moment, and change, as Darkin details, is, like life, ‘involuntary’. These are fine philosophies, but unlike the choreography and performances, they never quiet find their feet in the playful, chaotic cacophony that’s created.
Velvet Petal is playful and pulsing with life, but its theme, with everything around it ever-changing, feels a little lost.
The British Paraorchestra at Bristol Old Vic, 11th May 2018 & Scottish Dance Theatre at Trinity Fyfe Hall, 16th May 2018, part of the MAYFEST programme
