Festival Dance
Rain
Playhouse
Mary Brennan
four stars
AFTERWARDS, trooping out into a dark night with flickers of drizzle in the air, the contrast with Rain is keenly felt. On-stage, the semi-circular beaded curtain – designed by Jan Versweyveld – had glowed with colour-washes that shifted from pale rose gold through violet into dramatic purple before fading back into a sunny disposition. Dries van Noten’s costuming also changed hues, his little chiffon frocks floating in a palette of pinks that deepened towards magenta mid-way through the piece, before waning into ivory, silver grey, lemon. Nothing in this exquisite mise-en-scene suggested minimalism, and yet that is the term that has become something of an essential epithet for Steve Reich’s music, and for the choreography that Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker creates in response to it.
However, listen closely – as De Keersmaeker certainly has – to Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians and what initially seems stringently crafted simplicity swells with burgeoning harmonics, adding in rich textures from clarinets, marimba and xylophone that carry an invitation to dance for joy. Which is exactly what De Keersmaeker’s own company, Rosas, does in Rain. Three men and seven women ebb and flow across the stage in meticulously structured patternings – sometimes looping and spiraling as they run, leap balletically or skip playfully, sometimes forming straight lines, where arms swing upwards with a ritual-rhythmic synchronicity. Geometry is the mapping tactic in De Keersmaeker’s choreography, but as her dancers travel across the space, other constructs come to mind: birds flocking and wheeling along shared pathways or iron filings lured into formations by a magnetic force. The truly remarkable Rosas dancers never flag, nor falter, during the 70 minutes of perpetual motion, buoyant humanity bringing unexpected emotional depths to Rain’s minimalist components.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here