![](\"\/helen\/blog\/images\/la_veillee_des_abysses.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\nIn the past few weeks, I’ve seen three performances of contemporary dance. In a way they were all similar, and all could be described by the same headline: “a humorous mixture of dance and circus”. Today’s performance was James Thierrée’s “La Veillée des Abysses”. I’ll try to write about the other two later, perhaps – “Opus Cactus” by Momix, and “Tricodex” by Lyon Opera Ballet.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe show had a decidedly French feel, the way Jeunet’s “Cité des enfants perdus” (“City of Lost Children”) could only be French. Somewhere between mime and dance, fanciful and intense, yet managing – like French circus\/dance often does – to strike a balance between a wild imagination and a slight feeling of poetic sadness.\n<\/p>\n
\nFive performers were all on stage all the time and made this a very coherent piece. While it wasn’t really a narrative, there was definitely an underlying story, with one scene fading smoothly into the next.\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nThe first half circled in and around what seemed to be a dusty and ageing castle – a place of decaying opulence, with fading red velvet, cracked wood and ornate iron gates. The dancers themselves are dressed in half-tattered evening gowns and worn uniforms. The scenes can best be described as conversations that go on so long that they get out of hand. One of the reviews I read describes this part as being marooned in an old house – imagine this, and add gentle humour as the dancers start playing games to fill their long evenings. Trying to fit four people in a sofa for three, that then starts swallowing people. Or locking the gates, and making up elaborate passwords (passmoves?) consisting of such complicated gestures that the guardian himself forgets the correct order.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe story then shifts from evening to night, and stranger things start happening. A sleek green cat\/dragon creature crawls and climbs on the gates, pulling the gate guardian into a lovely pas de deux on the gates. Decorative suits of armour transform into bats, and a princess with her maid turn into a menacing horse. All done very sparingly with simple materials and few moves, so that the wild and imaginative props stay secondary to the dancers themselves.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe tone then changes for a while, and the feeling of magic is replaced with a starker setting and less interesting sketches, where both the dancers’ actions and the audience’s laughs are predictable. But towards the end, the magic returns, now with a half-wrecked ship instead of a castle – with billowing white sails, a man swinging in a high lookout point, and high waves and wind.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe sounds are as well designed as the sets and costumes, and vary from live piano, to Nina Simone’s Lilac Wine<\/i> and Tom Waits. (I know that Tom Waits song so well, but can’t remember which one it is… now I have to listen through all our Tom Waits CDs to find it!)\n<\/p>\n
\nDreamlike and fantastic, beautiful, combining playful humour with melancholy and decay. Wonderful piece.<\/p>\n
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James Thierrée’s “La Veill\u00e9e des Abysses” – wildly fantastic, combining playful humour with melancholy and decay. Wonderful piece.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,796],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art_entertainment","category-dance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18621,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8\/revisions\/18621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}