REVIEW: Celui Qui Tombe (He Who Falls)

REVIEW: Celui Qui Tombe (He Who Falls)

CCN2-Centre chorégraphique national de Grenoble

Grand Opera House, Belfast

Thur 19 Oct-Fri 20 Oct, 2017

Contemporary dance may not be everyone’s favourite performance art form, but the beauty of this breathtaking piece is that it is so different, so engaging, so well-performed and so unique that it is utterly unmissable!

You don’t need to be trained in dance to appreciate and enjoy the sheer agility and skill of the six performers in this demanding piece as it captivates all who are fortunate enough to get to experience it.

As part of the Belfast International Arts festival, this was the Irish premiere of this exciting work about the balance of power in a perilous dance of survival.

Conceived, directed and staged by Yoann Bourgeois and performed by Jean-Baptise Andre, Julien Cramillet, Elise Legros, Jean-Yves Phuong, Marie Vaudin and Francesca Ziviani, this recent Olivier Award nominated work began with the six dancers being lowered from high above the stage on a large square platform in both complete darkness and complete silence, creating an ominous atmosphere for the dancing dangers to follow.

This ambiance continued with all being lit by a single white down-light as the eerie silence was broken only by the mechanical creaking of the suspended and imposing platform which sounded like a rickety old lift in a dodgy old lift-shaft.

As the lights came up, the setting was the large and bare Grand Opera House stage completely stripped back to its back brick walls and to its full wing space and loading dock doors on either side to make room for the movement of the platform, which was, effectively, the set.

The platform soon began to spin, gathering both speed and momentum, with the dancers huddled together to remain upright before they started running and positioning themselves in still postures to prevent being thrown off the edge as each eventually fell to the revolving dance floor in turn – all to the music of Frank Sinatra’s My Way.Make cialis 5 mg browse for source sure to hire a lawyer who specializes in personal injury cases.

Described as a ‘gravity-defying’ routine as the performers battled against the centrifugal force, this was more of a ‘dizziness-defying’ performance, so fast was the spinning of the suspended floor.

The beauty and fantasy of the performance was in continuous battle with the relentless challenges thrown up by this ever-moving ‘mechanical monster’ of a platform (approx 25 square feet in area).

Like some death-defying fairground attraction that was balancing precariously on a single central fulcrum at one stage, it was difficult to see how any two performances of this work could ever be the same, as dancers, in turn, disturbed and corrected the equilibrium of the group and of its platform.

This scenario was repeated with the additional danger of the platform spinning and, as movement and music become more frenzied, the performance floor tilted to the vertical position and gradually lost all but one of the performers before returning to the horizontal where it seemingly crushed all below.

Creating an erriness of unpredictability and danger throughout, one wonders how this show could ever have received health and safety clearance, as the performers displayed full and extreme trust not only in their fellow dancers, but also in their technical crew and in the physical mechanics of the set itself.

The creaking of the platform was never a reassuring sound, especially when it was rocked from side to side by the performers like a large fairground swing until it was in full flight … and manic moments of pulling, hitting, trailing dancers across the stage were all executed with such choreographed precision that a staged accident appeared real and totally believable.

Constantly defying gravity, this was surely a ‘wicked’ and wonderful mix of physical theatre and circus skill under the guise of an effortless, if challenging, piece of contemporary dance.

I believe Arts Festivals should always strive to offer us the unusual, something we can’t see as part of regular programming and performances that are full of spectacle and skill … I also believe this is the type of show that International Arts Festivals were invented for!

Damien Murray

Photo credit: Geraldine Aresteanu