sarma

Ballett Mannheim is surely one of the most acomplished dance companies inGermany today. Judged by its latest triple bill, the company is in splendid shape: throughout all the three pieces, they master Kevin O’Day’s neo-classically tinged modernism perfectly. In a very short time, the dancers have developed a physical idiom that is completely their own. Unfortunately, it is sometimes at odds with the choice of music that threatens to stifle it instead of giving it directions.

Robert Schumann’s “Konzertstück op. 86 for 4 horns and orchestra“ dating from the turbulent time after the revolution of 1848, is a case in point. It sounds like a rather old fashioned piece diametrically opposed to Kevin O’Day’s contemporary looking dancers. Somewhere between chamber music and horn driven scenes from a hunt, it may well illustrate the ballet’s theme of men chasing women looking for intimacy. The result, however, is irony of which I am not sure whether it’s intentional. The five men dancing their guts out all wear black suits and ties with white shirts, whereas the five women sport black knee-lenght dresses with boots reminscent of Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker’s playful and teasing skips and jumps. The central couple changes its colours into red after a while. Having finally found each other after much running and rolling around, jumping and jiving, they strut off the stage arm in arm.

Dominique Dumais’ „The weight of absence“, originally choreographed for the National Ballet of Canada in 1998, was weighed down by Eric Cadesky’s monumental score. A fullblown orchestra, dramatically pounding drums and dripping echo effects to signify loneliness, wrapped Dumais’ lyrical and yet powerful movements in a shroud of pathos. In spite of the title, the nine dancers were very much present and together, unfolding a string of solos and duetts with the women sometimes lifelessly sliding down the bodies of their partners. Even in a relationship one might be inevitably trapped in one’s own body, but Dumais’s ballet surely knows how to bridge the gap.

The undisputed masterpiece, however, is “Quartet for IV (and sometimes one ,two or three…)”. The evening’s opener is Kevin O’Day’s very first choreography dating back to 1994 where it saw the light of day with Baryshnikow’s White Oak Dance Project in New York. Here, Kevin Volans’music from “White Man Sleeps”and Kevin O’Day’s movement form a perfect unity precisely because they give each other space to breathe. With a hint at both musical and chorographic minimalism in the shape of Philipp Glass and Lucinda Childs, both Volan’s string quartett and O’Days choreography succeed in liberating the emotions within their respective formal patterns. When they are not spaced out forming circles that become increasingly smaller, men and women remain closely attached to each other in their duos. O’Day never ventures too far into the air, preferring to explore the region above the floor instead. With highly articulated subtle and nuanced movements his dancers elegantly develop a breathtakingly playful and seductive physicality. These dances live and breathe. It’s simply one of the best pieces I have seen over the past few years.