Current touring production: 'White Out Conditions'

Description

White Out Conditions is driven by an interest in the notions of the beautiful and the grotesque. By creating images playing on the ‘excess of beauty’ and images highlighting the ‘beauty in the grotesque’, the work does away with the common sense binary opposition between the two notions, and instead suggests a continuum between them.

The work emphasises the transformation of meaning between images, and it presents the spectator with a series of visual scenarios from which to create a post-modern performance narrative, and experience laughter, fear, desire and empathy.

Visual scenarios move in and out of sight, sparking strong emotional responses:

• A contrast between the softness of human bodies, and the hardness and danger of metallic working tools (a series of knifes, swords, hammers and nails which hang from the ceiling, and hover half a metre from the floor).
• A reduction of the space usually utilised in performance (the performers drag themselves on the floor right underneath those working tools).
• The slow transformation of metallic working tools into flowers.
• The vulnerability of a woman whose shyness means that she will only enter the stage if all the audience cover their eyes. The raising of questions on perception: what does it mean to witness a dance when you cannot see it?
• A physical comedian’s struggle with his ageing body.
• A conflict between older and younger bodies performing articulate movement and intricate contact work.
• Physical metaphors of emotional constraints placed upon human behaviour, exemplified by images of women whose right feet are held by a rope tied to the ceiling.

There is an emphasis on the collaboration between performers and choreographer, and between performers, choreographer and designer. The devising process results in a series of intertwined narratives between the eclectic group of performers (one actor/comedian, two trained dancers, two physical theatre performers). In addition there is an integration between the devised performance elements and set design.

Under the artistic direction of Rita Marcalo, White Out Conditions promises to seduce, move, amuse, and inspire. It will take the spectator through a journey exuberating theatrical tension, astonishing visual designs and intricately choreographed movement, distorting reality along the way.

Tour Dates

Autumn 2007: 5th October – 15th December
Spring 2008: 1st February – 30th April
Summer 2008: 1st May – 31st July

If you are interested in booking White Out Conditions for your venue please contact us for more information and a booking pack.

Past touring production: 'Crooked Angels'

Description

'Crooked Angels' takes the audience on a journey composed of a trilogy of dance theatre works that allows you to become a voyeur into different stages of the relationship between two people.

The first of the works shows a woman frantically arranging objects in the space, so embedded in her task that she begins to treat her companion as an object. This evolves into a sometimes humorous, sometimes dark portrayal of the power of one woman against the other, in a visually stunning set of flying feathers.

The second inverts the power relationship between the two women. This time the feathers have given way to carnations and the women struggle to negotiate the power shift between them through a raw physicality that is a combination of dance and fighting techniques.

The final work begins as you enter the space pre-set with rows of candles and the scent of vanilla. The piece is performed in candlelight, and as the candles are blown one by one, the darkness descends on the performers and the audience. Gigantic metal angel wings, dolls, cotton and knifes are all played out in front of your eyes, gradually leading to a final conflict resolution.

A varied soundtrack of live and pre-recorded sound, ranging from 80’s pop to contemporary music add to the creation of an atmosphere of dark romanticism. With Marcalo’s trademark emphasis on emotionally charged choreography set in a series of surrealist visual environments, this is dance theatre bordering on visual art.

Tour Dates