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Edinburgh Festival 2007
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Reviews from the Edinburgh International Festival 2007 (5)Trish Brown Dance Company
Trisha Brown is a lady whose reputation precedes her, so much so that even attending one of her performances can be a daunting exercise in concentration. This triple bill from the choreographer who has been pushing the boundaries of movement since the 60s, treads a varied and colour-saturated path, but it is her lean and subtle interpretation of the Orpheus tale, set to Monteverdi's L'Orfeo which gives the programme its outstanding edge. In a distillation of the original operatic score, the dancers create a rich bodily language of their own, balancing the music with an intensity and economy of movement which is both stunning and moving to behold. Patterns of classical festivity, in the opening wedding, are later offset by carefully constructed shapes, with Judith Sanchez Ruiz's Messageria solo mirroring the soprano voice from Rene Jacobs's recording, with immaculate precision. Occasionally in this section, the movement is pared down so much it seems internalised, which adds to the intensity of Ruiz's solo. A beautifully drawn journey to the underworld is presented through black clad sprites carrying a nude body-suited dancer through balances and twists that seem as if they are underwater. Elsewhere during the evening, the theme of balance and support has already emerged. Present Tense is a bright and almost playful construction, set to the glassy percussive sounds of John Cage's Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano, in which a piano has been altered by the insertion of nuts, bolts and various other objects between its strings. The dancers, in red (with flashes of yellow in the pyjama trousers of two of them), evolve through a series of lifting and assisted balances, with partnering flowing into ensemble and back again. The sense of unity between the performers, framed by a bright and simple graffiti wall, had the echoes of toy shapes being created and deconstructed in fluid motion. Colour is stripped from Set and Reset, the opening piece, which begins with the buzz of vintage news reports and sepia/black and white projections of film. A loose almost randomness in the movement sees the dancers flow, limber and repeat whilst the bell-hollow tones of Laurie Anderson's score lead the piece into a spiritual cleanliness. Lucy Ribchester
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