Marten Spangberg in “The Beach” deliberately takes us into an alternate reality. There are enough problems with this world, why shouldn’t there be a different better parallel one.

The first music we hear is dreamy psychedelic sixties music played softly. The stage is covered with technicolour blankets. The cast stroll in slowly, positioning themselves on the blankets.

Spangberg’s “The Beach” is a rich colourful world.

Looking at his stage with reds, blues, yellows, purples and his cast in emerald, ruby, topaz and sapphire clothes, we are reminded about how much colour is missing in our own lives.

Marten Spangberg The Beach ImPulsTanz Heroine

The movement is centered around a young woman with long dark hair, wearing a red mask with gold glitter on the border. The mask fits her face perfectly and we can see her eyes.

Continue reading ImPulsTanz 2012: Marten Spangberg and Indigo Hangout – The Beach at uncoy.

For years I’ve been hearing about Benoît Lachambre and how splendid and illuminating his work is. From the same crowd who love Jerôme Bel and detest Anna Teresa de Keersmaker and passionately loathe ballet.

Hence Lachambre’s work has always appeared conceptual and fairly painful to me. In the best case, instructive or prophylactic, like a trip to the dentist. The tangy taste I had of his work with Clara Furey at the Franz West Tribute did inspire me to attend a full show. What impressed me there was his intensity. Lila, under Lachambre’s mentorship for the summer, told me that his main speech to DanceWeb was all about intensity on stage. A very good point to make.

Benoit Lachambre Snakeskins: LaChambre is bottom left, Albanese is bottom left
Rowe is on top of the rig pounding a thunder sheet
photo Christine Rose Divito

In “Snakeskins”, Lachambre begins by hanging upside down in a harness under a vast set of cables which dip four metres out to the audience.

Continue reading ImPulsTanz 2012: Benoît Lachambre – Snakeskins at uncoy.

When the door closes, a drum on top of a loudspeaker starts to play. It’s never quite clear what causes the drum to make noise and what part of the drumming is recorded and what part is pulled out of the drum on stage. The sound will be the most interesting aspect of this piece.

Tremor’s three dancers are modestly attired. Lisanne Goodhue is in a rose pastel thigh length dress. Isaac Spencer in faded skin tight jeans and a t-shirt. Sebastian Matthias himself in lederhosen and a beige t-shirt.

Their motions are spastic. Then motion stops and they hold uncomfortable poses, like store front mannequins.

Continue reading ImPulsTanz 2012: Tremor – Sebastian Matthias at uncoy.

We begin in a prison cell with metal walls. There are flashing lights which recall something from the film the Matrix. It’s good to see a choreographic production challenging (if in miniature) the opera productions and the main stage theatre productions in production design. Great to get away from the empty black room at last. Fantastic work from production designer Penelope Wehrli.

Ismail Ivo is naked in a blanket, bare naked. The bottom of his feet are painted red, reminding us all that he and we are made of blood.

Continue reading ImPulsTanz 2012: Francis Bacon with Ismail Ivo at uncoy.

Franz West died July 25. West was a conceptual artist who collaborated often with the dance creators at ImPulsTanz. Karl Regensburger moved quickly to put together a tribute by many of the dance makers who had worked with West or were influenced by his work last night.

Franz West by Ludwig Koeln

Moderator and hands on organiser Jennifer Lacey did her best to keep the program on track but at two hours without a formal break and some real trouble moving the performers on and off, momentum was uneven. Had Lacey known how many pauses there would be, she could have passed on the introduction and done that in forced breaks. She told one joke which made me laugh while waiting what seemed like half an hour for Philip Gehmacher to get out of the back and onto the stage.

Continue reading Impulstanz 2012: Franz West Tribute at uncoy.

The word on the street is that this Ivo Dimchev guy is unpredictable, even dangerous. You just don’t know what will happen when you enter the auditiorium. Mystery and danger, powerful human aphrodisiacs. It starts calmly enough.

Ivo Dimchev The P Project:
Projection of the cancelled verbal game
Readable 3456 pixel version

A guy walks onto the stage half naked shaved head and gold chains. Sits down at an electric piano. Holds his hands solemnly in prayer. Looks good and safe so far. First sign of trouble: Dimchev pulls out a little vertical jar, holds up to his nose and takes a couple of big snorts. Poppers he says.

He plays the piano rather well and then starts pounding on the keys so hard and so randomly you wonder if he knows how to play the piano at all.

Continue reading ImPulsTanz 2012: Ivo Dimchev, The P Project at uncoy.

Sometimes one is just blown away by a theatre piece. This happened to me last night with CIE I.D.A. and Mark Tompkins last night. Their piece has a rather silly title “Opening Night – A Vaudeville”. Theortically it’s billed as light entertainment and performance art, two of my least favorite genres. Normally performance art is under rehearsed claptrap by imperfect and sloppy technicians of modest charisma who are convinced the world rotates around their navels.

In other words performance art is an unadulterated fiasco which has poisoned the dance world and taken it over, as the less capable outnumber and outvote the properly trained as conteporary dance slips down a long greasy rail into ramp amateurism.

At least that’s what I thought until I saw Tompkins and his French partner Mathieu Grenier perform last night.

Mathieu Grenier Mark Tompkins as mother in Opening Night

Both gentleman are gifted singers and very capable actors.

Continue reading Impulstanz 2012: CIE. I.D.A./Mark Tompkins – “Opening Night – A Vaudeville” at uncoy.

ImpulstTanz lounge Saturday night

The Burgtheater Vestibule is a great place for a nightly outdoor party.  When the weather is good, a large part of the party can be outside.

Download 2000 pixel version for detail.

ImpulstTanz lounge summer in the city

It’s a great place to run into choreographers and dancers whose work you might be curious about. Generally the big stars are not there all that often (big stars are often older and have families and just don’t go out that much anymore: being a star is hard work, everyone always wants a lot from you and expectations are high).

ImPulstTanz lounge young and beautiful

Inside there’s usually some very good music spinning. On this particular night, it was mainly dance club hits from the mid-eighties, often in remixes.

Continue reading ImPulsTanz Lounge 2012 Photos: A Saturday night at uncoy.

The Odeon is one of the most magnificent performance spaces anywhere in the world. A dance company need only take the Odeon down to sandy bricks and Corinthian columns to create an atmosphere of impending wonder.

Emio Greco when he brough Double Points: Hell to ImPulsTanz went one step further. He opened up not just the main theatre space but the wings. The performance space was massive. He chose to use the light pushing in from side windows and skylights as the principal lighting. Starting time very strang though: 19:30, too late for the daylight to really dominate the lighting, too early for artificial lights to work their magic.

The absence of coherent lighting weakened the spell Greco tried to cast with his two dancers Sawami Fukuoka and Dereck Cayla (in an role originally created by Greco on himself).

Continue reading Emio Greco: Double Points: Hell at ImPulsTanz 2011 at uncoy.

On a balmy August Saturday night I was making my way home when I found two groups of people dining in the street. One group had a table under Karlskirche on Karlsplatz. The other were taking bowls of soup from the back of a van by the Vienna Technical University.

These two locations are just a few hundred meters apart.

Cities and differences.

Dinner in Vienna Soup Kitchen Technical University

Dinner in Vienna Karlsplatz Church

This was supposed to be a post not associated with ImPulstTanz. Ironically, the group dining under Karlskirche turned out to be associated with ImPulsTanz. It’s the theatre usher team. I only realised when preparing the photo for publication at 100% magnification. Great idea to take a table out and eat on Karlsplatz.

Continue reading Dining in Vienna: Two Very Different Dinners Two Hundred Meters Apart at uncoy.