IT seems wrong to waste the available wordcount, but it would be silly not to acknowledge that three interruptions from pro-Palestinian protesters disrupted the flow of Ohad Naharin's choreography for his Batsheva Dance Company from Israel.
Because it would be equally wrong not to note that the eleven dancers in this international ensemble (a bit like Scottish Ballet, then) simply stopped still until the protesters had been removed and then, calmly and with no little dignity, resumed the complex work they had learned. And Naharin's steps are certainly challenging, borrowing from nightclubbing as much as classical dance, employing animalistic vocabulary and mimetic theatrical shapes. There were virtuosic solos, intimate pas des deux and ensemble pieces for the six women and the five men. As often each dancer had his or her own quite distinct but simultaneous set of movements, but together they were required to switch from bunny hops to arabesques in an instant. None of it was cold, distant or academic, though: this was movement that seemed to be lifted from stuff we know from our own lives, even if we couldn't quite place where or when it was clearly parodic (and much of it was very funny).
Tomita's electronic soundscore was often equally cheesy, arrangements of the best-known popular classics including Strauss's Also sprach Zarathustra and Debussy's Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune.
At the climax of the piece it was (surely significantly) Wagner. To the Ride of the Valkyries, the dancers became like soldiers in a mimed battle – gunned down, picking themselves up and advancing again.
Sadly the shouty people had shot their bolt and been huckled out by then, so the irony was lost on them.
HHHHH
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