|
the
New York manufacturer of fine dance apparel for women and girls.
Click here to see a sample of our products and a
list of web sites for purchasing.
With Body Wrappers it's always performance at its best.
|
Go back to Flash Reviews
Go Home
Flash
Review 1, 11-7: Caveman
Something Quite Weird, but Wonderful from Laurie Booth
By Josephine Leask
Copyright 2003 Josephine Leask
LONDON -- Laurie Booth
is a magician of improvisation and a choreographer whose presence
is both commanding and familiar within the British contemporary
dance world. He is a maverick with a refreshingly different attitude
about choreography who has worked both inside and outside the dance
establishment, creating performances that are fueled by his eclectic
background in martial arts, contact improvisation, anthropology,
contemporary dance, mythology and metaphysics.
After an absence of
about seven years, it was good to see Booth back again at Dance
Umbrella, performing his own solo, "Ice/Dreams/Fire," in collaboration
with visual artist Thomas Richards and composer Nick Rothwell. Booth
often takes unusual themes as a starting point for his improvisation
and this piece was certainly more original than most. It was inspired
by the elaborately tattooed bodies that were discovered by archaeologists
in Siberia in the 1970s, perfectly preserved for 6000 years in the
land's permafrost. Booth was particularly fascinated by the tattoos,
which consisted of strange hybrids of animals arranged in dynamic
shapes and movements; he even had replicas of them tattooed on his
own body.
Booth's piece is a homage
to 'our' frozen ancestors. The dominating visual feature in the
work is Richards's ice sculptures, suspended over tin buckets at
center stage, and which slowly and methodically drip throughout
the duration of the performance. The ice, frozen into red-dyed shirts
and packed into small boxes before the show, melts and pushes the
material into all kinds of sinister shapes. As a result, the thawing
ice takes on a life of its own as it evolves into many stunning
and sinister red shapes resembling wizened flesh, fetuses, flowers
and coral. Rothwell's electronic score creates an aural environment
that is equally strange and powerful. He manipulates the dripping
sound of the thawing ice through his computers and builds a score
that both co-exists and integrates with the sculptures. At times,
the sound builds with the force of modern beats like an overwhelming
stage presence but retreats into whispering voices suggesting the
echoes of previous civilizations.
Booth appears like a
shaman or warlock in the shadows backstage, in dark glasses and
carrying a stick. He responds to his environment totally sincerely
and with a sense of steely purpose like a master of ceremony, thumping
his stick in rhythms of ritual. With his piercing eyes, shaven head,
tattooed muscular body and forceful stage presence he is both mesmerizing
and menacing. His legs seem to fall away from under him as he twists
and gyrates through his repertoire of improvised moves. Combined
with visuals and sound, Booth leads us into the twilight of ancient
times, picking up on the raw life force of ancient peoples made
immortal by ice, embodying the energy from the tattoos.
Laurie Booth combines
the muscular strength of an ox with the velvety softness of a puppy,
qualities that have made his movement style remarkable; improvisation
makes his choreography unpredictable and fresh. He surprises us
constantly by jogging urgently on the spot, diving into an inverted
balance on the floor, washing his face in the melted ice; his eccentricity
prompts giggles from the audience. It is great to see this in a
performer and however weird some of his actions are, one can feel
the depth of connection he has both with the subject matter of this
piece and with his collaborators.
Go back to Flash Reviews
Go Home
|