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.