Carolyn Bolton, Tanztheater Adrian Look and Hamanah Productions
Resolution 2017
The Place, London
Carolyn Bolton Where Things End and Ends Meet
Tanztheater Adrian Look Fathers and Sons
Humanah Productions Community
Carolyn Bolton’s Where Things End and Ends Meet explored the anxiety in severing emotional ties with a past lover. Bolton and Jacob O’Connell performed to a repeated spoken score which described the emotional progression of a former relationship. Exquisite control was accomplished whilst the dancers negotiated a physically demanding and thrilling vocabulary, whilst also mastering the restraint of a red band that tethered them together. In spite of their physical bond, there remained an unsettled air between the pair as they dismissed each other’s presence and strained to be liberated from their confinement. Their futile battle for closure lingered as the lights faded leaving them desperately clinging onto the red shackle.
Adrian Look’s Fathers and Sons honoured a ‘Tanztheaterian’ portrayal of the tales of absent fathers. Five male dancers approached the heartrending theme with a series of playful scenarios revealing the gaping voids in their acquired knowledge due to the absence of paternal guidance. This light hearted and fairly humorous tone soon diminished to reveal dynamic and expressive movement driven by the emotional response of individual and collective struggles. An ominous silhouetted father figure overlooked the space as a projected digital backdrop which seamlessly synchronised with the dancers. However, it became overwhelmed by psychedelic effects an ultimately distracted the eye. Their anguish was resolved as each dancer revisited their initially floored endeavours with a new sense of affirmed identity formed in the face of abandonment.
The pace of the evening mellowed as Humanah Productions took to the stage with Community. Daniel Persson and his eight dancers took an inquisitive approach in understanding individual identity within a community by creating a thread of spoken thoughts. These spontaneous confessions created a staccato soundscape as they disrupted the harmonious co-existence established through their tranquil movement. The company meandered around their ideas, never discovering a common conclusion, but indulging a primal need to belong.