Sadler’s Wells, London
October 21, 2021
Greek director Dimitris Papaioannou says he considers himself not to be a choreographer. Whether you agree depends on your view of what dance is, or can be. What is undoubted, is that he is a masterful creator of stage worlds and stage images, however (to discover that he first gained recognition as a painter and comic artist comes as no surprise).
Transverse Orientation is cut from similar cloth as The Great Tamer, seen in London in 2018, and his other work. This time it all takes place in what appears to be an empty room in a gallery with bare white walls. That gallery notion becomes all the more pertinent as Papaioannou refers to numerous works of art over the show’s 100 minutes.
Photo Julian Mommert
It opens with strange black creatures, small spheres for heads on long, thin bodies, appearing against the white backdrop. They look comical as they move awkwardly with their turned out, almost Chaplin-esque feet. The silent movie humour continues as they struggle with stepladders and trying to fix a flickering florescent light on the wall. The latter’s stubborn refusal to work properly is a recurring feature of the evening.
Running through the evening is the image of the bull, a life-size model of which is wheeled on and around the stage. Animated by the show’s eight performers, now in black suits, it is incredibly lifelike (especially when the stage lights catch its eyes) and rails against their attempts to subdue it. When a member of the cast later appears in a bull head mask, the reference to the Minotaur is obvious; and he is slayed.
Tableau follows tableau, sometimes in silence, sometimes accompanied by music by Antonio Vivaldi. Although there are countless references to other art works and Greek myths, there is no obvious narrative link. While things happen without leading anywhere, the moving tableaux flow seamlessly into one another in a sort of gradual succession. Scenes are variously dream-like, surreal, absurd and disturbing, but always beautiful and eye-catching. All also create atmospheres and sensations, and leave firm imprints in the mind.
Transverse Orientation is unhurried, Papaioannou giving the viewer space to wonder and perhaps make their own connections. There are busy moments though, not least when the cast take ages to construct a tower out of blocks of polystyrene foam (that look a little like limestone) only for it to collapse just as the final touches are being applied, leaving pairs of legs sticking up of the resulting sea of wreckage. Maybe a metaphor for society, the world, perhaps even culture.
Elsewhere, bodies combine to make phantasmagorical creatures. There are what I took to be references to the labour of Sisyphus. Naked dancers suggest ancient Greek statues. Surely, that is Europa seen riding on the back of the bull (Zeus). An Aphrodite gives birth in a shell-vulva. Unexpected humour comes when one of the strange men from the beginning reappears and tap dances.
Photo Julian Mommert
All the time, there’s a lot of emphasis on light. The performers seem forever drawn to it like moths, be it that misbehaving florescent or the centre of a spotlight, which gives the impression of them being backed by the moon.
Water is important too, whether as simple as the bull drinking from a pail or a woman becoming an elegant fountain. A quite brilliant disappearing trick sees a statue-like Breanna O’Mara, surrounded by a photoelectric energy effect, dissolve into a puddle and disappear before our very eyes. That moment leads to the stunning final picture, the cast lifting the platformed floor on which everything has taken place, piling it up to create beautiful rocky seascape (or the remains of civilisation, depending on your point of view), a man mopping the now soaked stage, and an Adonis figure reclining on one of the outcrops.
Transverse Orientation by Dimitris Papaioannou, part of Dance Umbrella 2021, is at Sadler’s Wells to October 23, 2021.
Also online to October 24 is Papaioannou’s Nowhere, a meditation on the nature of the theatre stage, its mechanisms and human presence.