Dance Review: La La La Human Steps

A brilliant group of dancers and an inquisitive choreographer offer an intriguing work that explodes with energy.

By ORA BRAFMAN
dance review 88 (photo credit: )
dance review 88
(photo credit: )
La La La Human Steps Amjad TAPAC January 12 A brilliant group of dancers and an inquisitive choreographer offer an intriguing work that explodes with energy, dizzying with its high-velocity moves and raising numerous issues concerning contemporary dance by using old techniques. On La La La Human Steps' earlier visits, choreographer Edouard Lock was busy breaking boundaries; he came closer than anyone before him to producing a mesmerizing dance as powerful as a rock concert. He used blown-up images on a huge screen to create an extensive dialogue between the concrete artifact and its image. What he retained from those days are the attraction to defying extremes and a craving for high-speed moves, as means to make a point - this time, on pointe. Though it's out with the bare feet and in with the satin pointe shoes, Amjad is far from classical ballet, despite Lock's supremely disciplined dancers. They execute duets at triple speed on contained, poorly lit spots, isolated and out of context - or so it seems, at first. Soon it becomes clear, as notes from Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty seep through the original composition. Amjad is what came out of a massive deconstruction of dance language and a bold reconstruction which forms an original palette of contemporary dance. Amjad is the result of a clash between the spiritual, ethereal body of the balletic language and the concrete, in the context of the 21st century. It is the linear narrative structure of old-school perceptions versus the fragmented form of post post-modernist esthetics. Lock, like he has on former creations, goes all the way. It is a brave, bold and highly intelligent piece of art that finds its match in the newly composed music by Gavin Bryars and David Lang, performed onstage by a superb quartet. The last performance is today at TAPAC.