@ King’s Theatre, Edinburgh, on Sun 22 May 2016
It isn’t until one goes to see a company such as BalletBoyz, that one realises how rare it is to see a whole programme of all-male dance. This is a real shame, as male dancers en masse can often create a really unique and interesting energy together. Tonight’s short programme comprises two contrasting works—Pontus Lidberg’s Rabbit and Javier de Frutos’ Fiction—both somehow very redolent of maleness, but in very different ways.
Rabbit is a meticulously constructed, very restrained work, beautifully structured, and performed with real sensitivity. Górecki’s Kleines Requiem für eine Polka is a great choice of music, and although it is not performed live on this occasion, it is well played, well recorded and well reproduced. It acts as an environment within which the choreography develops and unfurls: the dance is not to the music per se, rather it is built on top of it.
The energy of the titular rabbits is more Harvey than Lewis Carroll: that is to say they are more surreal than ‘nonsense’. They are certainly cunicular in their playfulness, but seem to carry the weight of a mysterious, forgotten symbolism: a lolling and lingering melancholy.
Fiction, on the other hand, seems looser, more self-conscious and hardly restrained whatsoever: all splashes of choreographic colour. Based on the premise of de Frutos’ demise, it features, among other things, a narrated obituary, and we get many layers of playful self-reflexivity, although this veers dangerously close towards its own vanishing point on occasion.
It is camp, funny, and almost confrontational in its own slightly chaotic way, but ultimately fails to make a real creative impression. Whereas the visual images and emotional resonances of Rabbit seem to become quickly imprinted, fading slowly, de Fruto’s work is more of a quick hit, full of sound and fury.
If anything, the evening seems to finish way too early. However, this is a well-balanced, well-danced, very thought provoking programme, from a very worthwhile company.