The Land of Yes and the Land of No

The words of choreographer Rafael Boachela and production designer Alan Macdonald as they describe the creation of this work are almost as graphic and emotional as the performance itself. The essence of the work is signs and symbols – how they direct us, divert us, warn us, alter our way.

Macdonald uses fluorescent light tubes as architectural symbols –  windows, doorways, scaffolding – and  washes of pure primary light that suggest time and change and uncertainty. They accent Ezio Bosso’s music – irregular sound patterns, sometimes discordant, sometimes almost silent, but always eerily beautiful.

Through the suggested doorways, the dancers move out of their sanctuary, sometimes hesitantly, sometimes confidently, to face a world where nothing remains the same, where shadows haunt, and light exposes and glances and tiny movements betray.

Through exquisite and perfectly articulated and controlled movement, the dancers begin their journeys facing symbolic signs and messages that bring them almost together, then scatter them apart. In pairs alone, they work through emotional signs and implications that are touchingly sensual and breath-taking to watch. As an ensemble they move into a cityscape that is fraught with crossing paths and blocked ways and varied speeds.

The choreography is intricate. An open hand articulates to an arm that weaves around the body reaches out, then pulls the body away. The movement is picked up as another dancer moves from safety to a similar diversion. Every tiny movement, every graceful leap, is perfectly  timed and dexterously executed. Lightness is accentuated in the airy white fabric of the costumes.

This re-staging of the work uses a larger cast than Boachela’s original London creation which toured from London to Shanghai and Venice.  It is an amazing physical interpretation of the things that control and order our lives and the decisions we are forced to make.

Carol Wimmer