There are some performances which the spectators are changed after witnessing them. I found myself one such spectator recently. And the performance was the double bill by Netherlands Dans Theatre.
A good dance performance always give me a sense of epiphany and euphoria when it shows me what human body can do, and communicate indescribable emotions. That’s the reason I enjoy watching dance performance – for that possibility of new discoveries. And I have been rewarded as an audience time and time again with that satisfactions because there are so many good dance performances out there.
In 2006, NDT performed in Singapore for the first time during the annual Singapore Arts Festival. I knew I could never forget them as soon as I stepped out of the theatre. Hence, their return this year is a must-see item for me.
Memoires d’Oubliettes choreographed by Jiri Kylian was a showcase of out-of-this-world-ness. Technically sophisticated, yet all dancers moved like they were immune to gravity, effortlessly. A closer look (try the video below) would reveal many ingenious thoughts behind pairing of two human bodies.
Sehnsucht, choreographed by Paul Lightfoot and Sol Leon, had a more linear narrative in its flow compared to Memoires d’Oubliettes. The duo who brought us a spinning wall on stage in 2006 performance used a revolving box this time. While this ran the risk of being deemed as gimmicky, the end result justified the means. What Kylian succeeded in creating refreshing illusions with human body pairs, Lightfoot & Leon achieved it via the conversations of two spaces – one moment I loved was when the female dancer was lifted by the male dancer outside the box while the box (and the other male dancer who was in the box) started spinning … she was saved momentarily from the chaos of a world she had been trapped all the while.
What NDT illustrates again and again is that the most powerful human part is a creative mind, in which anything and everything is humanly possible.
It seems.
