A bit of well-judged self-parody seldom goes amiss. About two-thirds of the way through Constanza Macras’ 100-minute dance-theatre piece, just as it risks discovering new topologies for disappearing up itself, performer Fernanda Farah breaks into an absurdly scathing indictment of the physical language of the form: how dancers always seem to be offering you parts of their body and so on. It breaks the ice exactly as required, and allows us to reset our sensibilities for the compelling climax.

Macras is examining memory and mnemotechnics, in particular the strong links between memory and location. She uses the concept of the city almost as an abstract template on to which we map our (real or imagined) memories, as illustrated by nine actor/dancers and two musicians playing Oscar Bianchi’s haunting wind-and-percussion soundscapes. The piece is entirely bilingual: when words are spoken in English they are surtitled in German and vice versa.

When specific recollections are required, it is natural to have used interview material from citizens of the two cities whose venues co-commissioned the work from the Dorkypark company, Dresden (where this first of two parts premièred early in November) and Berlin (where it now appears for only four performances). We hear of the reconstruction of cities from the rubble of war, but the keynotes are of course the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall and, in particular, the February 1945 air raids on Dresden and the ensuing firestorm. As the company, from middle-aged Ana Mondini to Nile Koetting whose limbs seem to be made out of loosely knotted string, re-create the life of a city across the multi-level set, Michael Weilacher builds up the aural vista of groans, rumbles and crashes until a vast wind machine stage left wipes out the performers one by one.

I remain unconvinced by Macras’ overall thesis, as it bounces between Aristotelian classicism and modern psychology, then into a Hollywoodised deconstruction with guns being waved and Christian Bale-style tantrums thrown; this is exactly where Farah’s interruption proves so crucial. But when the base material is dramatic rather than essayistic, the performers are at their most strongly engaged and engaging.
     
Written for the Financial Times.