Sadlers Wells, London
July 13, 2018
Alexandra Gray
Love Chapter 2 is the second part of L-E-V’s exploration of the darker side of love, which began with the OCD Love at Sadlers Wells back in 2016. I guess the obsession didn’t pay off, as the subject matter of Love Chapter 2 is the end of a relationship, and the darkness that ensues.
The piece certainly is dark. Six androgynous dancers are dressed in loose grey leotards and black socks that call to mind the grotty underwear you choose when you’re too heartbroken to make an effort with your appearance. They stand, backs arched with longing, as Ori Lichtik’s live percussion ticks like a clock in the silence of the loneliest night. The cool lighting casts shadows as they shift and ripple through a series of angular shapes, sometimes with crossed wrists which called to mind The Dying Swan.
The layers of sound build steadily, always with a menacing, industrial quality. The choreography is similarly layered and built on repetition. Sometimes this is hypnotic to watch but it doesn’t always engage the interest. When it does, a range of poetic images emerges and recedes from the shadows. A woman stooping low with one arm held aloft appears like Atlas carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. At other moments the dancers hold their heads in their hands as though nursing a memory. They are mesmerising to watch, taking eye-wateringly deep plies and elastic backbends.
Photo André Le Corre
Artistic director and co-creator Sharon Eyal has danced and directed for Batsheva Dance Company, and the influence of their house style, gaga, is evident in the way the dancers move with an animalistic, impulsive self-possession. Gon Biran was a standout, with a liquid spine and great musicality. My eye was continually drawn to his odd and impish physicality wherever he was.
The piece is predominantly an ensemble work however. The six dancers cluster and advance as one like a pulsing brain or scuttling crabs. Sometimes a repeated motif stutters and skips like a stuck record, or a fluid phrase breaks into jagged pieces. Although the group are a tight and sensitive ensemble, there is very little contact between them, either through touch or eye contact. Each seems locked in their own desolate world, “dreaming in a blind body,” as the programme notes describe it. This results in a textureless quality overall; there are no relationships to latch on to, which makes the work too oblique and alienating at times.
L-E-V’s evocation of lost love is relentlessly bleak. Towards the end, dancers begin to smile nastily, and open their mouths in silent screams or grimaces. The lack of warmth or variation in the lighting becomes oppressive, which may be intentional, and the music is, for the most part, similarly monotone. The curtain comes down on the ensemble still dancing, suggesting no resolution to this painful state.
All told, exciting dancers and some inventive moments, but I hope there’s more to life after love than this.
L-E-V are performing both OCD Love on August 9 & 11, and Love Chapter 2 on August 10 & 12, at the Kings Theatre, Edinburgh, as part of this year’s Edinburgh International Festival. Visit www.eif.co.uk for details.