GöteborgsOperans Danskompani Presents Choreography by Damien Jalet & Sharon Eyal @ Sadler Wells in London

text by Lara Monro

This weekend GöteborgsOperans Danskompani presented Skid and SAABA, the works of internationally acclaimed choreographers Damien Jalet and Sharon Eyal, at London’s Sadlers Wells. Both performances push the limits of contemporary dance through their daringly experimental approaches.  

Jalet’s Skid was first performed in 2017 at Gothenburg’s opera house. In 2019, it was named “Work of the Year” by the critical collective “Danse avec la Plume.” Its fitting title alludes to the relentless effort that the seventeen dancers endure to stay on the 34-degree tilted stage designed by New York artists Jim Hodges and Carlos Marques da Cruz. 

This experimental choreography is inspired by the laws of gravity, which forces the dancers to both struggle against and surrender to its natural forces. One by one, the dancers emerge over the top of the stage, which they slip and slide down before falling into the dark void at the bottom. More often than not, it is unclear as to whether they are improvising, carrying out a choreographed movement, or in the midst of losing their grip. Jalet creates a landscape of endless possibilities that is both moving and slapstick. The dancers, adorned in playful and multi-functional costumes by fashion designer Jean-Paul Lespagnard, are in an exhausting dialogue with the inhospitable terrain. Split into three sections, the first is a gentle introduction to the dancers and their graceful attempts at navigating their descent. The second is more dramatic as they challenge gravity by ascending the stage; showing off their physical strength and agility in unified choreography. In the final piece, a solitary figure appears, suspended in a beige sack—alluding to an amniotic sack or a perhaps a big pair of tights—and breaks free from their clothes and the womb-like space. Spectacularly framed by the harsh white lighting, the naked body walks slowly to the top of the stage and jumps off into what we can interpret as the precipice of the universe.  

GöteborgsOperans Danskompani, SAABA by Sharon Eyal, image credit Tilo Stengel

GöteborgsOperans Danskompani, SAABA by Sharon Eyal, image credit Tilo Stengel

It’s safe to say the best performance was saved for last. Eyal’s distinct style is effortlessly carried off by the hypnotic dancers in SAABA who spend most of the performance on demi-pointe, pulsating power. Each contorted movement exaggerates Eyal’s uncomfortable, abstract, and totally unique language. The androgynous body suits, made by Dior designer Maria Grazia Chiuri, leave little to the imagination. We are left in awe as we observe the capabilities of the human body when pushed to its physical limits. There is an alien-like quality in the way the dancers carry themselves; an unnerving beauty as each and every muscle throbs and protrudes. Their wild, jarring movements prompt a visceral reaction. You are in awe and repulsed all at once. Favoring unison, Eyal keeps her dancers connected, or at least in close proximity to one another for the duration of the performance. Yet, they manage to maintain their individual conviction and sass throughout.

GöteborgsOperans Danskompani, SAABA by Sharon Eyal, image credit Tilo Stengel

GöteborgsOperans Danskompani, SAABA by Sharon Eyal, image credit Tilo Stengel

Sharon Eyal's Rambert2 Slays The Stage With Killer Pig @ Sadlers Wells In London

Rambert2 Dancers in Sharon Eyal's Killer Pig © Deborah Jaffe

text by Lara Monro
photographs by Deborah Jaffe

In February 2020, 650 early career dancers auditioned to join Rambert2: a new and exciting programme founded to develop the artistic practices of a diverse cast of daring performers. Eleven practitioners were selected for their unique talent. Starting in May this year, the ensemble toured the UK to perform Sharon Eyal’s Killer Pig. Designed to extend the Rambert company’s traditional reach, the Rambert2 collective takes distinctive, world-class dance to more people in more places.

Born in Jerusalem, Eyal established the contemporary dance company L-E-V (meaning heart) with her long-standing collaborator Gai Behar in 2013. Prior to this, Eyal danced with the Batsheva Dance Company from 1990 - 2008. From 2009, she began to form her own choreographies including Killer Pig (2009) and Corps de Walk (2011). Since 2013, L-E-V has had more than 200 performances in some of the most exclusive venues and festivals around the world: The Joyce Theatre – NYC; Jacob's Pillow – Berkshires; The Montpellier Danse Festival – France; Julidans – Amsterdam.

Last weekend, Sadlers Wells welcomed Rambert2 to its stage. Eight of the eleven performers executed Killer Pig with unwavering raw passion. The minimalist expression, intense honesty, and uncompromising physicality of the piece is provocative, carnal, and adrenaline-inducing. L-E-V uniquely combines ballet with hip hop: a head-bop seamlessly morphs into a pirouette. At forty minutes in length, the performance is the epitome of artistic endurance. The audience witnesses fearless determination and dedication as the performers bodies are pushed to extremes. The dance explores a spectrum of emotion: dark, obsessive, and beautiful. 

Instantly submerged within what feels like a club room dedicated to pounding industrial techno, the bodies move mainly in unison — part of a whole organism that ebbs and flows across the stage — until one, or a few break off and offer up an independent performance before dissolving back into the collective. It's tribal, at times trance-like, with a sassy aggression. 

Tight, beige leotards leave little to the imagination, allowing every part of the anatomy to be celebrated for its athletic achievement: muscles bursting, ribs protruding. The harsh, white lights designed by Kevin A. Jones draw attention to their facial expressions: passioned, pained, sometimes crazed. 

Home was also performed by Rambert2: a new commission created by the American choreographer Micaela Taylor. The first dance of the evening is recognized for its numerous influences that encompass classical ballet, hip hop and Gaga. 

Long-term L-E-V collaborator, Ori Lichtik, is the genius behind the multifaceted industrial soundscape, which arguably seals the deal for making the performance an all-around superlative piece of contemporary dance. The standing ovation, and emotional reaction this provoked in the audience, was a poignant nod to the long-overdue return of live performance post COVID. 

Undanced Dances Through Prison Walls During a Pandemic Is A Virtual Performance Space Of Embodied Liberation

In 2016, choreographer and educator, Suchi Branfman, began a five-year choreographic residency inside the California Rehabilitation Center, a medium-security state men’s prison in Norco, California. The project, dubbed “Dancing Through Prison Walls,” developed into a critical dialogue about freedom, confinement, and ways for surviving restriction, limitations, and denial of liberty through the act of dancing. The dancing abruptly ended in March 2020, when the California state prison system shut down programming and visitation due to Covid-19. The work was rapidly revised, and the incarcerated dancers began sending out written choreographies from their bunks to the outside world. The resulting collection of deeply imagined choreographic pieces, written between March and May of 2020, became Undanced Dances Through Prison Walls During a Pandemic.

Guided by the written and choreographic direction from inside the prison walls, the performers effectively dance these works into the “free” world. Highlighting six of the dances written/choreographed inside the prison by Brandon Alexander, Richie Martinez, Landon Reynolds and Terry Sakamoto Jr., this event includes a film of the written work transformed into embodied dances in sites throughout the Santa Monica civic center area, drawing focus to the nation’s school to prison nexus (Meiners, 2007), followed by a conversation with the eleven artists involved.

With artistic direction by Suchi Branfman and cinematography by Tom Tsai, the dances are powerfully narrated by Marc Antoni Charcas, Ernst Fenelon Jr., Richie Martinez and Romarilyn Ralston (formerly incarcerated movers and organizers) and choreographically interpreted by a group of brilliant choreographers: Bernard Brown, Jay Carlon, Irvin Gonzalez, Kenji Igus, Brianna Mims and Tom Tsai (all of whom have joined Branfman dancing inside the Norco prison). Each team was entrusted with bringing one of the written dances to action. Between them, they are steeped in hip hop, tap, breaking, performance art, quebradita, spoken word, Butoh and contemporary dance forms. Released from prison during the summer of 2020, Richie Martinez joins the cast as he narrates and performs in “Richie’s Disappearing Acts” which he wrote while incarcerated at the Norco prison during the pandemic.

In December 2020, Undanced Dances Through Prison Walls During a Pandemic was published by the inimitable Sming Sming Books. Benefiting the authors, Critical Resistance and California Coalition for Women Prisoners, the 2nd edition of the sold out book is forthcoming. This project was made possible by Art of Recovery, an initiative of Santa Monica Cultural Affairs.

Undanced Dances Through Prison Walls During a Pandemic is a free virtual event produced by 18th Street Arts Center that can be joined via Zoom April 16, 2021 6:30pm PDT (Spanish translation available)

The Grandeur Of His Epic: Read Our Interview With Choreographer Jay Carlon →

Defining a culture that comprises 7100 islands, centuries of colonization, and an overwhelming desire to assimilate is profound and Sisyphean. Unlike a migration that takes place over land, the ocean seems to wash away all evidence of the traveled path. The historical narrative that has framed Filipino-American immigration is fraught with this eternal question of identity and belonging. Being part Filipino myself, I learned very little about my grandmother’s life story while she was alive. It wasn’t until after she passed away and my grandfather published her memoirs that I learned just how harrowing her journey had been.

After attending the world premiere of FLEX, a dance theater piece that explores primarily the story of choreographer, Jay Carlon’s father and his immigration from the Philippines to the States, I realized that the erasure of these stories is rather commonplace. Click here to read more.

Maceo Paisley And Katie Malia Present Line Steppers @ Marciano Foundation

Line Steppers, a performance by Maceo Paisley and Katie Malia, unfolds within Albert Oehlen/Peppi Bottrop: Line Packers”. Paisley and Malia’s navigation of a social space in the gallery adds a layer of commentary on labor versus expression in the world of art and entertainment. Curated by Brian Getnick. photographs by Lani Trock

Read Our Interview Of Chris Bordenave Contemporary Choreographer & Founder of No)one. Art House →

A classically trained, multi-disciplinary choreographer, who is one of the 3 founding members of a dance company called No)one. Art House., Chris Bordenave has recently been working with a number of musical artists, such as Anderson Paak, Mayer Hawthorne, and more recently Solange and Kelela. He has also been creating site-specific works for institutions such as the California African American Museum, Hauser + Wirth, and Solange’s SAINT HERON House. Click here to read the full interview.