If we could see the flow of time, perhaps it would look like this: dancers moving across the stage, each individual with his or her own pace and form of movement, yet all moving onward. Sideways Rain, choreographed by Guilherme Botelho, made its Israeli premiere last night at the Suzanne Dellal Centre in Tel Aviv, launching the Culturescapes Swiss Season in Israel. Simple and complex as life itself, any description of the performance falls short of the experience.
It is a bold work, relying on the intensity of an abstract theme, a current running through the entire piece. One might summarize it in a single sentence: thirteen dancers cross the stage time after time. Yet that is not it at all. They enter in dim light, knees bent, walking on all fours. They enter not as a group, moving in choreographed unison, each one moving forward at an individual pace. The stage is bare, light and sound merge with the dancers’ movement. The progression across the stage is a constant, yet the movement changes, the repetition heightening the awareness of each shift in pace and gesture.
As they move past, we see them as individuals, like strangers in the city, we do not know their name or destination, but we mark their presence and their passing. As they move past, we see them as movement, as part of some eternal message transmitted endlessly, each slight change in the code altering the message.
It’s a vision of life on a Möbius strip, infinity embodied. Whirling, hypnotic, dizzy, meditative, halting, leaning forward into movement, each change is deeply felt. Rolling fast across the stage like something organic, something electric; life at the microscopic level, teeming with movement. Something cosmic.
A woman stops and looks at the others. What does it mean to stop in the midst of this relentless movement? What is the meaning of this gaze?
Allusive, evocative, Sideways Rain generates moment after moment of images, thoughts and associations: moments of beauty, shimmering vibrating strings, the music of the spheres.
Sideways Rain will be performed tonight, October 6, 2011 at 21:00, at the Suzanne Dellal Centre, 5 Yehieli Street, Neve Tzedek, Tel Aviv. Tickets and information: 03-5105656.
Sideways Rain
Choreography: Guilherme Botelho; Assistant: Madeleine Piguet Raykov; Music: Murcof (Fernando Corona); Costumes: Marion Scmid; inspired by Julia Hansen; Scenography: Guilherme Botelho, Stephanie Liniger; Set Construction: Stadttheater Bern Workshop, Atelier GGN, Martin Rautenstrauch; Technical Director: William Ballerio; Dancers: Stephanie Bayle, Fabio Bergamaschi, Erik Lobelius, Danilo Moroni, Madeleine Piguet Raykov, Julien Ramade, Amaury Reot, Claire Marie Ricarte, Caded Sauvaux, Nefeli Skarmea, Christos Strinopoulos, Gabor Varga, Jorys Zegarac.
