Irish Times writers review Double B(l)ind at Samuel Beckett Theatre and Anissimov with the RTE Symphony Orchestra at the National Concert Hall.
Double B(l)ind at the Samuel Beckett Theatre
Take one white space, two colourfully dressed dancers and 26 black chairs and the scene is set for Double B(l)ind, which, in collaboration with the Irish Modern Dance Theatre and William Forsyth's Ballett Frankfurt, received its Irish premiere at the Samuel Beckett Theatre in Dublin last week.
Why 26? It mattered little in the end, as did the fact that there was no score for this finely-performed mesmerising work which, drawing on the concept of double bind of American anthropologist Gregory Bateson, explored notions of boundaries, duality, ritual, and repetition. This exploration also embraced the roles of choreographer, performer and audience.
The two dancers, Fabrice Mazliah and Jone San Martin, doubled as dance makers (with Agnes Chekroun ) and immediately drew you into their obsessive world by sharing their sense of familiarity They expressed this through an arm gently draped around a neck, a head inclined on another's shoulders, but also by replicating these moves and gestures. They seemed to be revisiting a familiar duet which they had danced before if only one could anticipate and mirror the other's intentions.
The chairs became integral to this dance, partners in crime on a journey which seemed controlled by a preordained geometric pattern and rhythm. The chairs were moved endlessly, constructed and then reassembled in stacks or in rows. They became T junctions and cul de sacs on this journey to nowhere as the space inevitably contracted. The dancers soon entered a challenging phase, seeking to outwit one another by slithering beneath a line of chairs or deftly removing one at a crucial juncture. Gradually they moved in on the audience, placing the chairs as close to the front row as possible, inviting us to comprehend this circle of repetition.
At the end the chairs were discarded and they were on their own, face to face, fisted hand against the other's mouth and as San Martin placed her fingers inside the mouth of Mazliah, the last inch of space was invaded. We were then all abandoned in a darkened space as the ritual was no doubt ready to begin again. Seona MacReamoinn
Anissimov, RTÉ NSO/Anissimov at the NCH, Dublin
Tchaikovsky - Theme and Variations
Mozart - Piano Concerto in A K414
Tchaikovsky - Sleeping Beauty Suite.
1812 Overture.
The billing for Friday's concert by the RTÉ NSO listed just two Anissimovs, Alexander the conductor, who is father to Sasha the pianist. But on the night there were in effect three.
Alexander, first heard in Ireland conducting Tchaikovsky's Cherevichki at the Wexford Festival of 1993, made such an impression that within three years he had been appointed principal guest conductor of the RTÉ NSO, and within five had become its principal conductor. The reputation he so successfully established was undermined during his years as principal conductor when his limitations in pre-romantic repertoire were mercilessly exposed.
The first half of Friday's concert showed the weaker Anissimov. The finale of Tchaikovsky's Suite No. 3 is an orchestration of a set of variations for piano which Mozart wrote on a theme from Gluck's opera La rencontre imprévue. Anissimov's heavy performance clouded the outlines of the original Mozart rather more than is necessary.
In Mozart pure and simple, the Piano Concerto in A, K414, he was careful but lacking in spirit. The solo playing of his son, Sasha, showed good finger control, but stayed in the middle ground.
The suite from Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty was, by contrast, big and bold, tender and sweet. The rhythm was sprung, the phrasing long-breathed, the mixture of surging power and delicate refinement intoxicating.
This was the conducting of the Anissimov who set hearts racing back in the 1990s, and his full panoply of skills was also brought to bear in the 1812 Overture, given an excitable, exciting reading, which seemed to win the audience's approval. Michael Dervan
