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![]() ‘The Land of Yes September 2009 London, Queen Elizabeth Hall by Bruce Marriott |
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It's been a good week - my third premiere and my second hit(*). And not any old hit either, this was a 100% gold-plated "My I wasn't expecting something as stunning as that" hit. Lyndsey Winship's brief programme notes give some of the game away: "The Land of Yes and The Land of No marks a new maturity in Bonachela's work. As a choreographer who has always been fascinated with the mechanics of movement in time and space... this latest piece marries that exquisite abstraction with an intense emotional pull." In a nutshell Bonachela has started to unpack humans interacting at a whole different level above the physical, and I think that resonates with audiences - and with me. The Land of Yes and The Land of No takes as inspiration the signs of life - the signals we see on a road and signals we give off as humans etc and goes on to explore the impact they have on our life. That's the theory. I saw it most clearly in a section where two young teenagers, sweet on eachother but each not really sure how the other felt (not reading the signals), giving furtive looks and resulting in dances of confusion. Other times it's less clear and we were often in the general territory of human interactions, happiness and unhappiness, or seemingly abstract work. But with movement this interesting I don't need the whole back-story. Bonachela has six strong dancers but three particularly stand out. Amy Hollingsworth and Cameron McMillan are born communicators and in their extended duet, full of melancholy and close emotion she often rubs her head against him or does does a cat-like kneading with her feet/paws. Other times they explode with energy and that kinetic kick we associate with Bonachela. Throughout they never loose contact with one another, and this only magnifies it all. People talk of dancer versatility and only recently they we both dancing in a full-on Romeo and Juliet ballet to rave reviews - an amazing span. The other dancer that really stood out was Paul Zivkovich (or I think that is who it was) doing a solo that was as much gymnastics floor exercise as dance, with speedy, lunging limbs and eye-popping, inside-out contortions. But not sterile - there was a lot of flowing beauty in this movement. Music for The Land of Yes and The Land of No was by hip minimalist Ezio Bosso and like the dance gave us both rigid austerity and the emotion of deeply resonating strings. It was also played at reasonable volume which was a huge problem for many last year. Bonachela is still growing as a choreographer but for me he made one of those step changes in connecting with us.
(*) For reference the other hit was David Bintley's E=mc2 for Birmingham Royal Ballet (review), and the other premiere was the Brandstrup-Rojo Projects Goldberg (discussion).
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