Tarn by Maria Falconer
Review
★★★★
A delightfully varied taster of different dance styles, Heads Up is a midday pick-me-up with three different programmes and a mixture of professional and community dancers. The first programme launches PRIME, artistic director Morag Deyes’ brainchild and dear to her heart, as a 60+ dancer herself. Tarn is choreographed by Angus Balbernie and the company, and incorporates words as well as dance, quoting ecological pioneer John Muir: 'If we didn’t, we’d regret it for the rest of our lives. It was glorious.' And these dancers are indeed glorious, performing with great expressiveness and collectively discipline while maintaining individuality; a truly moving experience. 'The greatest risk is to risk nothing,' a dancer proclaims. Morag Deyes was right to take the risk of founding this new company.
“Inspired by the semi-autobiographical writings and rantings of Malcolm Lowry and erotically shaded by the evocation of Rita Hayworth in Gilda, Materials For A Small Winter seemed to physically shimmer and warp in the heat of a boozily recalled Mexico. A simple, striking backdrop of slatted wood presumably corresponded to the author's fisherman's hut in British Columbia, yet resembled nothing so much as the spied through window blinds of classic film noir. Rising late and stumbling from the audience, Clive Andrews' Lowry – crumpling and contorting, intermittently inspired and doubling over with regret – seemed to pass through various stages of lucidity during an intensely personal Day of the Dead. A young femme fatale in an elegant red dress barked questions in Spanish that confused even the fluent amongst the audience and later pleaded with them to pluck out her eyes with a gleaming blade.
Five female dancers passed at various times across the stage, all but ignoring Lowry and his proffered scribblings, the strums of his ukulele and his more idyllic memories. Instead – seemingly possessed by the raw spirit of Elise Dabrowski's yowled vocalising and mournful double bass – they were sometimes free to move gracefully, other times jerking violently and crushed into a physically demeaning, crawling departure.
Conceived and devised in just five days by director Angus Balbernie and the cast, Materials For A Small Winter has an intensity and immediacy that render it impossible to wrench your eyes from”. (Jay Richardson. The Scotsman. Scotland)
“It is an atmospheric 80 minutes of beautifully choreographed theatre designed to give its audience a wierd but tempting insight into the brilliant mind of alcoholic novelist Malcolm Lowry...the characters combine mesmerising physical theatre with the equally off-the-wall words of the novelist’s literature.” (Rebecca Gilbert. Bristol Evening Post.)
“Balbernie has been creating origional pieces all over the world, and has been known to create full-length pieces with large casts in three-hour rehearsals. This promises to be one of the most original experimental movement pieces on the boards this summe”.
(San Francisco Chronicle).
“Angus Balbernie, the director, did a great deal to set the productions dark mood and tone. The effect is at once highly fragmented and strangely coherent”. (SF Gate, USA)
"Statements punctuated with silent physical response, memories cast to and fro that languish momentarily, reflections of romance, sadness, happiness, youth juxtaposed with age are reflected in how the body wears its memories. The performers/ dancers held the flow of the stream of thoughts in their dreamlike landscape. Angus McLean Balbernie's conceptual projection, direction and choreography exuded emotion through improvisation. A great piece of work that epitomises the alchemy of improvisation."
(Xanthe Sunni O'Connor).
“If you have the opportunity to see some of Balbernie’s work-make an effort. You will leave the experience with striking images, thick and languid text, and remnants of still untold stories floating through your head (at the very least). In fact, many return to see his pieces several times, because of the immense amount of layering and depth in the material”. (Krista De Nio, Dance Monthly, USA).
“Summer Intensive is the umbrella title that Dance House gives to its two-week programme of professional development that sees participants plunge into classes in movement, composition and directing, all tying in to the creating and showing of work - the result, There Are Holes in Everything, was a quirky collage of segments that joined up to give a sense of the vulnerability and need to care in a society fragmenting into loneliness and non-communication. There were some lovely details for audiences to enjoy, but most of all this was a chance for performers to explore new directions. “Intensive" hardly encompasses the processes set in motion by Angus Balbernie - his Materials for a Small Winter was made from "zero to finish" in five days. Taking impetus from the life and writings of Malcolm Lowry, and with nods in the direction of Rita Hayworth's performance in the film Gilda, the piece had a discomfitting, raw energy that - like the vocalisings of double bassist Elise Dabrowski - yowled and jittered with the madness and sadness of Lowry's various booze-altered states..A dividing stretch of slatted wood created separate realms while the cast of seven threw caution to the wind, seized on Balbernie's mix of text and movement and delivered up one of those radical onslaughts that leave you feeling sand-bagged, unlikely to forget it, and amazed at what five days can produce” (Mary Brennan.The Herald.)
“Angus Balbernie, the director, did a great deal to set the productions dark mood and tone. The effect is at once highly fragmented and strangely coherent”. (SF Gate, USA).
“Malcolm doesn’t understand borders ...of any kind”, declares one of the characters in Angus Balbernie’s take on the life and work of alcoholic author Malcolm Lowry. It’s a phrase that applies equally to this work, which ignores all performer/audience, dance/theatre, reality/fantasy boundaries. brilliantly conceived and exectuted, this dance-theatre was a dream to look at, stimulating throughout, and both perplexing and engaging in turns.” (Lesley Barnes. Venue Magazine.)
“Angus Balbernie has a penchant for strangeness and intense gambits”.
(Mary Brennan, The Herald, Scotland).
“Utter anguish is the overriding memory that I shall take with me from Angus Balbernie’s “Meat”. Never has despair manifested itself with such fervour and totality and through Sung-Lyun Moon’s heartbreaking demeanour. From her first appearance trying to control an arm that is seemingly determined to break free, to her final water-soaked entry where even a thorough drenching cannot wash away some deep inner sorrow, she is nothing short of mesmerising. Where Balbernie’s earlier “Meatyard” had looked at the photography of Eugene Meatyard, this takes it a step further, exploring the “darkness of great male artists and their treatment of women”. Certainly there was evidence of the body as “meat” - a duet for Katie Miller and Sarah Blanc found them forcing each other bodies into ever more extreme positions - while Lisa May Thomas allowed herself to take up provocative poses rejected by the others. For her part, Melina Seldes declaimed in several languages equating women with cats,dogs, and raw meat. Jack Webb’s role as the lone man was enigmatic. Much of his time was spent with his arms folded above his head or crouched on the floor, hands clutched in quivering prayer. Only once did he appear predatory or menacing, as his sweeping slow motion burst into gunfire-quick frenzy. Holding the whole thing together - integral - yet apart - was french double-bassist/vocalist extraordinaire Elise Dabrowski, whose sharp yet beautiful wailing soundscape enveloped the disparate, pained cast”.
(Lesley Barnes. Sept 2006. Venue magazine.)
I’ve recently been privileged enough to enjoy two performances featuring veterans of the dance field: Eiko and Koma’s “Retrospective Project” and Jess Curtis with Angus Balbernie in “Jess Meets Angus”. In contrast to the vast majority of youth-centric dance, these two shows stood out in that they not only were conceived and created by older well-established artists, but they were also performed by older well-established artists.
Eiko and Koma’s bare sixty-something bodies, their minimalistic movement, and their seeming disregard for pace and time combined to create an intensely concentrated experience. They made their own rules and then broke them over and over again. I literally sat perched on the edge of my seat with my breath held, not daring to wonder what would happen next.“Jess Meets Angus” felt similarly concentrated. At one point Balbernie stood facing the audience and looked each of us in turn in the eye. It was thrilling and scary: though his gaze felt warm and inviting it was at the same time intensely unbearable.
Often dance feels the need to show audience its capability. ODC’s recent shows at YBCA felt so charged with the desire to show off their dancers’ abilities I missed the simple intimacy that can pass from performer to viewer when the performers’ technical ability is almost of inconsequence because their ability is inherent. In a similar vein, Mica Sigourney’s recent audaciously-named “Masterwork” came across as so loud and brazen I generally felt numbed. It was only at the end of the piece when the content sifted down to its bare essentials that I truly felt I experienced Sigourney’s intention. The difference between showing and sharing is subtle but exaggerated in performance; one involves an element of “wow” and another is completely beyond wowing.
Obviously veteran dancers and dance-makers have had a lot of time to perfect the craft of simply sharing their work, but I wonder if there’s something to take and apply from their wisdom. It is something I crave for myself as an artist, to dispel the need to show off, be good, and put out and instead to simply share with the audience. I am inspired by the example set by the older generation of dancers performing today, that one can be engaging and enticing through simply being oneself.
(Emmaly Weiderholt. “Stance On Dance”, San Francisco.)
“angus Balbernie's "1000 Grey Birds" uses strands of Shakespearean poetry, film noir, and the voices and bodies of the performers, along with an original score by ingenious local musician/composer/homemade instruments czar Mark Growden in an intriguing exploration of sound, text and movement.” (Bay Guardian, USA).
“Gave a new meaning to the notion of being dragged through a hedge backwards”.
(Sofie Constatine, The Guardian).
“You can’t beat success. Last year British man of the theatre Angus Balbernie sold out his “A Thousand Grey Birds” at Footloose. No wonder he was invited back for another residency. (Rita Feliciano, San Francisco Weekly).
“Angus Balbernie’s fabulously flustered, violence-weary referee...”
(Rachel Howard, San Francisco Examiner).
“Angus Balbernie, whose three-minute rant on boxing, life and matters philosophical is deeply inspired nonsense....all the more impressive when you learnthat Balbernie is making it all up as he goes. Out of such improvisation comes inspiration and eventually, art.” (C W Nevius, San Francisco Chronicle).
“Balbernie inhabits this scenario as if it was a second skin. He treats us courteously - even makes us laugh with calm details of survivalist savagery so that we slip easily, unthinkingly, into our roles of colluding wires finding entertainment in decay, delusion, death. It’s a marvellously persuasive, un-histronic portrait of implosion”.
(Mary Brennan, The Herald.).
“On the surface, this domestic monologue delivered in beautifully naturalistic style by Angus Balbernie...” (Joyce McMillan, Scotland On Sunday).
“There is no mistaking the clarity of movements- and their ability to combine anarchy with elegance. Balbernie, another fine mover, reveals his talents as a pianist, as well as his ability to cope with being force-fed handfuls of carrots”.
(Kay Smith, The Scotsman).
Review
★★★★
A delightfully varied taster of different dance styles, Heads Up is a midday pick-me-up with three different programmes and a mixture of professional and community dancers. The first programme launches PRIME, artistic director Morag Deyes’ brainchild and dear to her heart, as a 60+ dancer herself. Tarn is choreographed by Angus Balbernie and the company, and incorporates words as well as dance, quoting ecological pioneer John Muir: 'If we didn’t, we’d regret it for the rest of our lives. It was glorious.' And these dancers are indeed glorious, performing with great expressiveness and collectively discipline while maintaining individuality; a truly moving experience. 'The greatest risk is to risk nothing,' a dancer proclaims. Morag Deyes was right to take the risk of founding this new company.
“Inspired by the semi-autobiographical writings and rantings of Malcolm Lowry and erotically shaded by the evocation of Rita Hayworth in Gilda, Materials For A Small Winter seemed to physically shimmer and warp in the heat of a boozily recalled Mexico. A simple, striking backdrop of slatted wood presumably corresponded to the author's fisherman's hut in British Columbia, yet resembled nothing so much as the spied through window blinds of classic film noir. Rising late and stumbling from the audience, Clive Andrews' Lowry – crumpling and contorting, intermittently inspired and doubling over with regret – seemed to pass through various stages of lucidity during an intensely personal Day of the Dead. A young femme fatale in an elegant red dress barked questions in Spanish that confused even the fluent amongst the audience and later pleaded with them to pluck out her eyes with a gleaming blade.
Five female dancers passed at various times across the stage, all but ignoring Lowry and his proffered scribblings, the strums of his ukulele and his more idyllic memories. Instead – seemingly possessed by the raw spirit of Elise Dabrowski's yowled vocalising and mournful double bass – they were sometimes free to move gracefully, other times jerking violently and crushed into a physically demeaning, crawling departure.
Conceived and devised in just five days by director Angus Balbernie and the cast, Materials For A Small Winter has an intensity and immediacy that render it impossible to wrench your eyes from”. (Jay Richardson. The Scotsman. Scotland)
“It is an atmospheric 80 minutes of beautifully choreographed theatre designed to give its audience a wierd but tempting insight into the brilliant mind of alcoholic novelist Malcolm Lowry...the characters combine mesmerising physical theatre with the equally off-the-wall words of the novelist’s literature.” (Rebecca Gilbert. Bristol Evening Post.)
“Balbernie has been creating origional pieces all over the world, and has been known to create full-length pieces with large casts in three-hour rehearsals. This promises to be one of the most original experimental movement pieces on the boards this summe”.
(San Francisco Chronicle).
“Angus Balbernie, the director, did a great deal to set the productions dark mood and tone. The effect is at once highly fragmented and strangely coherent”. (SF Gate, USA)
"Statements punctuated with silent physical response, memories cast to and fro that languish momentarily, reflections of romance, sadness, happiness, youth juxtaposed with age are reflected in how the body wears its memories. The performers/ dancers held the flow of the stream of thoughts in their dreamlike landscape. Angus McLean Balbernie's conceptual projection, direction and choreography exuded emotion through improvisation. A great piece of work that epitomises the alchemy of improvisation."
(Xanthe Sunni O'Connor).
“If you have the opportunity to see some of Balbernie’s work-make an effort. You will leave the experience with striking images, thick and languid text, and remnants of still untold stories floating through your head (at the very least). In fact, many return to see his pieces several times, because of the immense amount of layering and depth in the material”. (Krista De Nio, Dance Monthly, USA).
“Summer Intensive is the umbrella title that Dance House gives to its two-week programme of professional development that sees participants plunge into classes in movement, composition and directing, all tying in to the creating and showing of work - the result, There Are Holes in Everything, was a quirky collage of segments that joined up to give a sense of the vulnerability and need to care in a society fragmenting into loneliness and non-communication. There were some lovely details for audiences to enjoy, but most of all this was a chance for performers to explore new directions. “Intensive" hardly encompasses the processes set in motion by Angus Balbernie - his Materials for a Small Winter was made from "zero to finish" in five days. Taking impetus from the life and writings of Malcolm Lowry, and with nods in the direction of Rita Hayworth's performance in the film Gilda, the piece had a discomfitting, raw energy that - like the vocalisings of double bassist Elise Dabrowski - yowled and jittered with the madness and sadness of Lowry's various booze-altered states..A dividing stretch of slatted wood created separate realms while the cast of seven threw caution to the wind, seized on Balbernie's mix of text and movement and delivered up one of those radical onslaughts that leave you feeling sand-bagged, unlikely to forget it, and amazed at what five days can produce” (Mary Brennan.The Herald.)
“Angus Balbernie, the director, did a great deal to set the productions dark mood and tone. The effect is at once highly fragmented and strangely coherent”. (SF Gate, USA).
“Malcolm doesn’t understand borders ...of any kind”, declares one of the characters in Angus Balbernie’s take on the life and work of alcoholic author Malcolm Lowry. It’s a phrase that applies equally to this work, which ignores all performer/audience, dance/theatre, reality/fantasy boundaries. brilliantly conceived and exectuted, this dance-theatre was a dream to look at, stimulating throughout, and both perplexing and engaging in turns.” (Lesley Barnes. Venue Magazine.)
“Angus Balbernie has a penchant for strangeness and intense gambits”.
(Mary Brennan, The Herald, Scotland).
“Utter anguish is the overriding memory that I shall take with me from Angus Balbernie’s “Meat”. Never has despair manifested itself with such fervour and totality and through Sung-Lyun Moon’s heartbreaking demeanour. From her first appearance trying to control an arm that is seemingly determined to break free, to her final water-soaked entry where even a thorough drenching cannot wash away some deep inner sorrow, she is nothing short of mesmerising. Where Balbernie’s earlier “Meatyard” had looked at the photography of Eugene Meatyard, this takes it a step further, exploring the “darkness of great male artists and their treatment of women”. Certainly there was evidence of the body as “meat” - a duet for Katie Miller and Sarah Blanc found them forcing each other bodies into ever more extreme positions - while Lisa May Thomas allowed herself to take up provocative poses rejected by the others. For her part, Melina Seldes declaimed in several languages equating women with cats,dogs, and raw meat. Jack Webb’s role as the lone man was enigmatic. Much of his time was spent with his arms folded above his head or crouched on the floor, hands clutched in quivering prayer. Only once did he appear predatory or menacing, as his sweeping slow motion burst into gunfire-quick frenzy. Holding the whole thing together - integral - yet apart - was french double-bassist/vocalist extraordinaire Elise Dabrowski, whose sharp yet beautiful wailing soundscape enveloped the disparate, pained cast”.
(Lesley Barnes. Sept 2006. Venue magazine.)
I’ve recently been privileged enough to enjoy two performances featuring veterans of the dance field: Eiko and Koma’s “Retrospective Project” and Jess Curtis with Angus Balbernie in “Jess Meets Angus”. In contrast to the vast majority of youth-centric dance, these two shows stood out in that they not only were conceived and created by older well-established artists, but they were also performed by older well-established artists.
Eiko and Koma’s bare sixty-something bodies, their minimalistic movement, and their seeming disregard for pace and time combined to create an intensely concentrated experience. They made their own rules and then broke them over and over again. I literally sat perched on the edge of my seat with my breath held, not daring to wonder what would happen next.“Jess Meets Angus” felt similarly concentrated. At one point Balbernie stood facing the audience and looked each of us in turn in the eye. It was thrilling and scary: though his gaze felt warm and inviting it was at the same time intensely unbearable.
Often dance feels the need to show audience its capability. ODC’s recent shows at YBCA felt so charged with the desire to show off their dancers’ abilities I missed the simple intimacy that can pass from performer to viewer when the performers’ technical ability is almost of inconsequence because their ability is inherent. In a similar vein, Mica Sigourney’s recent audaciously-named “Masterwork” came across as so loud and brazen I generally felt numbed. It was only at the end of the piece when the content sifted down to its bare essentials that I truly felt I experienced Sigourney’s intention. The difference between showing and sharing is subtle but exaggerated in performance; one involves an element of “wow” and another is completely beyond wowing.
Obviously veteran dancers and dance-makers have had a lot of time to perfect the craft of simply sharing their work, but I wonder if there’s something to take and apply from their wisdom. It is something I crave for myself as an artist, to dispel the need to show off, be good, and put out and instead to simply share with the audience. I am inspired by the example set by the older generation of dancers performing today, that one can be engaging and enticing through simply being oneself.
(Emmaly Weiderholt. “Stance On Dance”, San Francisco.)
“angus Balbernie's "1000 Grey Birds" uses strands of Shakespearean poetry, film noir, and the voices and bodies of the performers, along with an original score by ingenious local musician/composer/homemade instruments czar Mark Growden in an intriguing exploration of sound, text and movement.” (Bay Guardian, USA).
“Gave a new meaning to the notion of being dragged through a hedge backwards”.
(Sofie Constatine, The Guardian).
“You can’t beat success. Last year British man of the theatre Angus Balbernie sold out his “A Thousand Grey Birds” at Footloose. No wonder he was invited back for another residency. (Rita Feliciano, San Francisco Weekly).
“Angus Balbernie’s fabulously flustered, violence-weary referee...”
(Rachel Howard, San Francisco Examiner).
“Angus Balbernie, whose three-minute rant on boxing, life and matters philosophical is deeply inspired nonsense....all the more impressive when you learnthat Balbernie is making it all up as he goes. Out of such improvisation comes inspiration and eventually, art.” (C W Nevius, San Francisco Chronicle).
“Balbernie inhabits this scenario as if it was a second skin. He treats us courteously - even makes us laugh with calm details of survivalist savagery so that we slip easily, unthinkingly, into our roles of colluding wires finding entertainment in decay, delusion, death. It’s a marvellously persuasive, un-histronic portrait of implosion”.
(Mary Brennan, The Herald.).
“On the surface, this domestic monologue delivered in beautifully naturalistic style by Angus Balbernie...” (Joyce McMillan, Scotland On Sunday).
“There is no mistaking the clarity of movements- and their ability to combine anarchy with elegance. Balbernie, another fine mover, reveals his talents as a pianist, as well as his ability to cope with being force-fed handfuls of carrots”.
(Kay Smith, The Scotsman).
