'No Me Besabas' reviews 'Rio Seco' reviews recent Grupo Krapp reviews more Renee Renouf reviews

Presenting Grupo Krapp on its first U.S.tour with the choreography of Luciana Acuna, Luis Biasotto and Agustina Sario served to put this country on notice Argentineans take no back seat in athleticism, the absurd in dance, an acuity in presenting the underbelly of culture; violence interwoven in blatant displays of sexuality. The evening was the closest thing to Dada I've seen since watching my late classmate, one-time Joffrey Ballet dancer, John Wilson, engaged in his incredible danced monologues. And that is to say it was formidable.

The ensemble uses musical fragments by Rosamel Araya, Company Segundo and U.K.'s own Fund-da-men-tal, displays impeccable timing, superb deadpan delivery and a certain sureness which belongs only to the disciplined and imaginative performer. There is Spanish dialogue, fairly minimal, and I envied the occasional wave of laughter from those familiar with the language.

After delays on the Bay Bridge, Yoko Tahara and I reached our seats after the first number. Missing one sequence didn't lessen the impact.

The first half , No me besabas? (Weren't you kissing me?) concerned varieties of seduction, overt sex and sheer menace. In this first half as in the second, titled Rio Seco (Dry River), an ensemble of six, two of them musicians,interweave music, and one straight man wields a fascistic command over the three choreographers who outdo themselves with full-bodied physical floor flopping, walking over derrieres, chests, backs, and tumbling ensembles in non-stop fashion. The ensemble a trois rarely hints at any old fashioned romantic or sexual triangle. What sexual implications that do arise is a full-fledged homo-erotic sequence,tango style, (repulsed), leading to a back-to-the-audience act of masturbation, increasingly active, until Luis Biasotto calls for the curtain.

As you can imagine, for such violent activity the two women and Biasotto wear knee guards, revealed when they remove their shirts and trousers down to their backless black leotards. Luciana Acuna and Agustina Sario very nearly succeed in making themselves unattractive, blobs of female compliance in an over weighted male-female landscape, holding their arms in an exaggerated first ballet position ended in fists. They become at moments objects to be dribbled along the floor in a male game of wits, doing so with such objectivity you suspect they thought up the sequence themselves. Every thing is rendered in flat out execution mode, totally concentrated on the connections and the timing. For all the sordid implications, you are lost in admiration at the accomplishment and the consistency of the ensemble.

In Rio Seco it is less violence than ennui, the "So What Else is New?" laid-back rendition. Following an extraordinary physical combat between one of the choreographers and Luis Biasotto, their mastery generated spontaneous applause.

One of the musicians, who both played the accordion and later the piano, looked like an El Greco model for some Christian martyr or one of the absurdly wonderful characters from a Satyajit Ray movie. In the final sequence, the other musician lounges along the top of the piano, the female athlete draped along the side. Everyone appears lost in a reverie. Swinging his foot rhythmically against the back of the piano player, higher or lower, as he shifts his weight and position, the musician sings and the ensemble gazes off into would-be bliss of the forever happy. The audience chuckled constantly.

Grupo Krapp is definitely a sardonic take on cultural clichés viewed as South-of-the-Border romance. I say ole!