Review: Made In Russia, Sacred Festival

The Sacred Festival is in full swing now at the Chelsea Theatre, and as mentioned in my previous article here, it is one not to be missed. Bursting with contemporary practitioners, and theatre pieces from across Europe, there is hidden in the depths of Chelsea, a creative oasis.

What happens when you take two Russians, heavily involved in dance, and allow them to collaborate together on a theatre piece that both explores their own identity as performers but also interweaves a narrative of past experiences? Made In Russia is the outcome. A slightly surreal and bizarre post-modern theatre piece created, conceived and performed by Andrei Andrianov and Oled Soulimenko.

It’s hard to place my thoughts on this piece. I felt slightly disengaged by the performance at first. A purposeful detachment made by the performers stating how they wanted to start the piece with notable famous characters but failed to get them due to money. They start again. The performers stating how they wanted to start the piece with… they start again. It is repetitive, yet it is slightly addictive, the English subtitles playing comically behind the two exposed performers.

The piece shifts between small narratives delivered into a microphone, to varying styles of dance and further disengaging through recorded speech and the use of a television screen. Soulimnko and Andianov reveal small pieces of information about their lives, their careers and their various engagements with dance. They move between comic persona and expressive pieces of dance.

They speak of their relationship with Maya Plisetskaya and Jean-Luc Godard. It’s a focus point, a place that the narratives seem to always return to. Yet equally Made In Russia allows for the spectator to get lost in movements, the rolling images on the television screen and the speaking voices from the boom box. It blurs the boundaries between a dance piece and a post-modern theatre piece.

Made In Russia is a fragmented dance piece of captivating moments, of images, songs, lights, images.

It’s a body moving in space to robot styled music and a monotone voice delivering a letter to a lost friend, a lost collaborator.

It’s a moment in time expressed in a body transcended into a theatrical black box.

It is a metaphor.

It is a performance piece I do not quite understand but can appreciate.

The piece in both Russian and English also expresses the performers concerns with taking this very same piece of dance theatre to an English audience. “We must speak in English”, because apparently it is more accessible when spoken in English, yet equally the Russian language becomes slightly magical.

An hour later, as the performances draws to an end I struggle to comprehend how this dance theatre piece has managed to draw me into the depths of Russian culture and how I feel slightly compassionate towards these two Russian dancing men. I feel touched and actually proud to know that I’ve witnessed a Russian contemporary piece of theatre, that I was a witness to this happening.

The Sacred Festival of Contemporary Theatre and Performance is currently on at the Chelsea Theatre, see their website for a full listing of events.

The Dance’s The Thing [Part 1]

An Experiment: What happens when you take someone so rooted in theatre and ask them to spectate upon dance. Not just any sort of dance for that matter, but a Dance Festival… well, it certainly proved interesting when I took the plunge into a contemporary dance extravaganza of a weekend just gone.

The first on my list for inspection came to me at Jackson’s Lane, where the Cloud Dance Festival was taking place. Having been invited by the organiser of this festival, I was welcomed with open arms to allow my critical eye to linger over some of the participants.

The Cloud Dance Festival is at it’s current state a three day events which takes place at ever changing venues. The simple idea behind this festival is to allow younger and up-and-coming dance companies to showcase their work in 10 to 20 minute slots.

The festival is run and managed by Chantal who along with her dedicated team manage to run this festival on no funding, bringing amazing talent of dance to one location. I can’t help but to raise my praise for the team behind this festival. The ability to continue to bring all of this 3 times a years, with no money, it’s fantastic. It shows a true dedication to an art from which I can easily relate to with my theatre obesesions.

So what did I learn from witnessing this dance festival?

Firstly, you don’t have to be fully appreciative of dance as a genre of art to not enjoy it. Nor do you have to be an expect to be able to write about it. So, I might not have years of experience, nor can I quite deliver the technicalities of dance positions and manovers but what I can do, or rather see is the experience of the event. To witness, to enjoy, or to scratch my head asking, “What’s going on?”, either way these are all experiences that I undertook during the festival.

There are many parralles between dance and theatre, made even more clear when you get some of the performances classed more as dance theatre than dance itself.

Jackie O'Toole and Dances in 'Eve'

Narrative – whilst some of the performances I watched, contained narratives, dance allows for a freedom away from the normal conventions of theatre, with plot, narration, dialogue. That is not to say that they don’t exist, which was made very clear when many of the performances contained speaking to enhance the work. What is great about dance is sometimes you do not need to follow the action, attempting to pick apart the relationships between the ‘characters’, nor must you always pay attention to the ‘plot’ in order to understand the outcome of the piece. No. With Dance, there is this fluidity for the performance to just be witnessed. To just watch bodies moving within a space. Watching the shapes, patterns, repetitions, movements that the dancers make – that alone is joy to the eye.

Music – The emphasis on music used as a dramatic device within dance is outstanding. I think I was rather taken aback when I watched the festival. Every performance included the use of music. Even now I’m questioning if a piece contained silence at all… possibly not. Music and dance are therefore entwined together, the choreography feeds off the rhythms, off the style of music, and at times sets the tone of the pieces. I’m a sucker for music, it’s a secret obsession of mine, so to be able to listen to such rich volumes of music during these pieces came as only another way in which I felt this overwhelming sense of calmness within me.

Honestly – to watch a body that is trained in moving around a space – to have the freedom within the body to fall, to jump, to spin and turn over and over – coupled with music for the ears… you momentarily get transported into another world. It all seems too simple. Whilst theatre attempts to completely immerse the spectator into the world of the play or action, dance almost throws itself in the opposite direction. Admittedly with the bare stage of the Jackson’s Lane it is difficult to see past the dancers and explore what the story behind them might be, but this isn’t a negative point at all. It enhances the ability for you to truly see what you want from the dancing.

Henry Fry and Riccardo Buscarini with their 'Places of Non-Belonging'

Energy – One thing I’ve noticed is the sheer amount of energy which is needed for a performance of dance. I think at times it can be quite easy for an actor to give it half of his attention during a play without getting noticed of this. However in dance it becomes blindingly obvious when a dancer lacks energy. I saw this several times in the festival, more from the younger companies. However on the flip side, with this came a whole abundance of energy. If you have it – you’ve got it, and also have the audience too.

The Face – This might sound like a strange thing to state but I became increasingly fascinated with the dancers face. For at times, some dancers showed nothing, not a flicker of anything flashed across their face. Others allowed for countless emotions and amusements to flow freely whilst they danced. But where is the distinction between these two different ideas. Are dancers allowed to show their emotions on their face? Or should it only show the physical exertion that they are going through? I wish I knew the answer.

These are some of my observations from a ‘critical point of view’. I’m sure I could write many more, but I’ll save this for another time.

What I admire about the Cloud Dance Festival is the vast selection you get from this festival. It’s not a matter of going and experiencing world class dancers, it is more venturing into an unexplored territory. Some of the dances I watched truly caught me by surprised and I honestly enjoyed. Others I admired for the sheer effort that went into them. I didn’t quite expect there to be such a vast array of talent and ages too. On the night I went, there seemed to be a younger feel to the participants, but this made it even more enjoyable because you can certainly tell that some of them are bound to go on and produce some amazing work in the future.

The Cloud Dance Festival is about potential. It showcases an array of talent – giving opportunities to those that need it. I see this festival as a melting pot of talent, boiled down, distilled for several days and then unleashed upon a stage.

My advice? Even if you aren’t too keen dance, or know nothing of dance, as is the case with me. Sometimes it is worth exploring for an exciting adventure into the unknown. [And how many conventional theatre shows have you seen which have included a bit of dancing… quite a few I imagine!]

End of Part One of my discussions upon dance.

For those interested in Cloud Dance Festival, visit their website here. Please support this worthwhile festival by joining their mailing list or going to their next festival in November