Netherlands Dans Theater, State Theatre, Saturday June 23rd 2016

Netherlands Dans Theater, State Theatre, Saturday June 23rd 2016

For those new to my blog I write about the holistic experience of attending the theatre. I buy my own tickets. So if you want a re-telling of the story please refer to the links for further information or for further insights.  Note, that I may provide different links for repeated main words or phrases.  I write for my memories of what I have seen, and is more of a stream of consciousness.


"Netherlands Dans Theater" performed a trio of works as an Australian exclusive at The State Theatre, Arts Centre Melbourne Saturday June 23rd 2016.

Our tickets were purchased about 7 months in advance upon their initial ticket release and they were snapped up fast.

We have seen "Netherlands Dans Theater" on about four or five occasions in the past, and seen each of their various programmes.  This time they did a trio of works "Sehnsucht" by Sol Leon and Paul Lightfoot, "Solo Echo" by Crystal Pite and "Stop-Motion" by Sol Leon and Paul Lightfoot,

"Sehnsucht" by Sol Leon and Paul Lightfoot reminded me of a contemporary version of Fred Astaire dancing in the room that turns around from "Royal Wedding".  Prince Credell is an athletic sleek and shiny black dancer who begins and ends this work.  He wears white loose trousers and shows off his magnificently masculine muscular physique.  Prince Credell dances sublimely and controls when he begins and ends the work.  He will not be rushed in framing this work.  If Prince Credell is the photographic negative then the two dancers Medhi Walenski and Parvaneh Scharafali, in the rotating box set are wearing the opposite colours. The male Medhi Walenski and Parvaneh Scharafali in the rotating box set are wearing the opposite colours to him with their white skin and black trousers.  The lady, Parvaneh Scharafali wears white tunic and is seated on the fixed-to-the-wall chair and leans on the equally fixed-to-the-wall table. 

This is a dance about yearning and Prince Credell introduces us to his yearning and desires.  It is voyeuristic at times as he poses while the others dance in the rotating cube.   Is he yearning for them or they for the outside world?  At times it has hints of regret and even razbliuto.  It is also like a threesome with no physical contact but intense emotional connections.

The dancing is sublime while the choreography at times is a bit clunky especially as the cube rotates.  There are pauses and shifts of weight to allow the dancers to get purchase and ready themselves for the next rotation.  I appreciate the editing in "Royal Wedding" is different to watching a life performance but felt these shifts were not as exciting and challenging our spacial perspectives.  

Saying this, I thought the use of the door and the windows was much more exciting than the cube turning.  This is where I felt we were challenged with our sense of spatial perception.

I could nearly scream at the cliched turned in a la'seconde attitude positions and yearned for more variety.  I was definitely feeling razbliuto about these positions.

The two side tabs revealed an ensemble of twelve dancers who rose from the wings.  This looked impressive at first but soon lost its appeal due to some of the sloppy ensemble timing.   When the ensemble were synchronised they looked terrific.  Note they were not doing a canon!

The ending was blurry as audience members scrambled for their mobile phones because the world was obviously going to end if they did not check them.  Prince Credell took his time to conclude the work as he remained crouched in his squat for many minutes until he finally rolled up through his spine and wandered very slowly off stage.  This reminded me of Lindsay Kemp's famous walk across the stage in "Flowers".  That was revolutionary and provocative back in 1875/76 and now comes across as indulgent.

"Solo Echo" by Crystal Pite was like being manipulated by others.  The soloist was like their plaything or toy as if the ensemble were the marionette operators.    I thought this was the most satisfying work in the programme.

The backdrop was a multi media of snow falling.

There were lots of suspended motions and off balances in the ensemble's ripple effects.  They demonstrated through dance the consequences of someone's actions and how it ripples through the lives of others.

My favourite section was when the six or seven dancers were in one line behind each other.  The main dancer moves upstage to each of dancer and tilts their head -first dancer right side, second left side and continued alternating as each dancer was thrust aside - quicker and quicker until the last dancer was caught.  This was a beautiful phrase that thankfully was not repeated.  There was a slight variation that hinted at this phrase but allowed us to savour the complexity of this work.

The lighting by Tom Visser created a flow and link to the choreography.


The final work was "Stop-Motion" by Sol Leon and Paul Lightfoot,  A large screen hung on down-stage right and showed a baroque type woman.  We saw close ups and various slow motion movement through out this piece.

Great extensions by the dancers showed power and their superb technique.

Five to six dancers brought a curtain forward and dumped white powder on the stage and returned the curtain upstage.  Usually this curtain device is shown to reveal a new dancer or create waves, and the dumping of the flour like powder was a surprise.  Though in hindsight the photos in the programme alerted us to some dancers getting very earthy with the powder.  The use of sand and powder was more successful in the co-production by The Australian Ballet and Bangarra Dance Theatre "Rites" based on "The Rite of Spring" where they used the coloured sands of the earth to paint their bodies ritualistically.  In "Stop-Motion" it seemed like a theatrical trick.

A bird flew off into the distance on the backdrop.  The dancers pulled back the black backdrop to create vaulted columns.  The side tabs rolled forward and were raised into the flies.  The lights above were exposed and lowered and reminded me of the finale of  the 2014 Broadway Tony Award winning revival "Pippin".  

The final pose had the man and woman interlocked reaching forward in opposite directions and created a semblance of hope after the heaviness of the theme of farewell and transformation.  The finale pose allowed the lightness of renewal.

Overall the dancing was sublime while the choreography was very repetitive at times.

Overall a 7/10.