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| Photo by Julieta Cervantes | Amancio Gonzalez, Cyril Baldy
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Sonic Blasts of Lies and Lust
William Forsythe's DECREATION breaks down unraveled love
By QUINN BATSON
Offoffoff.com
Decreation for William Forsythe is a meticulous rehashing of the dialog, arguments and feelings of an unraveled relationship. No word or sensation is left alone until it is fully re-experienced and re-examined through repetition and variation.
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| | | WILLIAM FORSYTHE: DECREATION | Choreography by: William Forsythe.
Dancers: Yoko Ando, Cyril Baldy, Esther Balfe, Dana Caspersen, Amancio Gonzalez, David Kern, Fabrice Mazliah, Roberta Mosca, Tilman O'Donnell, Nicole Peisl, George Reischl, Christopher Roman, Jone San Martin, Parvaneh Scharafali, Yasutake Shimaji, Richard Siegal, Elizabeth Waterhouse, Ander Zabala.
Music by: David Morrow.
Sound design by: Bernhard Klein, Dietrich Krüger, Niels Lanz.
Set design by: William Forsythe.
Costumes by: Claudia Hill.
Lighting design by: Jan Walter and William Forsythe.
Dramaturgy: Rebecca Groves.
Video design: Philip Bussmann.
Camera: Ursula Maurer.
| | SCHEDULE | BAM
October 7-11, 2009
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With the help of sound designers Bernhard Klein, Dietrich Krüger and Niels Lanz and video designer Philip Bussmann, Forsythe has choreographed a sonic stagescape and a time-shifted video mirror that recreate and amplify the overwhelmingness, disorientation and flashback qualities of the bad feelings in a bad relationship.
Dana Caspersen is the initial narrator and ringmaster of this crazy circus, joined by Georg Reischl as the German translator and later as the unfaithful partner to Richard Siegal, who is also the object of Caspersen's love scorn. It is a convoluted triangle with interchangeable players, and the entire cast of 18 dancers contribute. There are plaything lovers, lovelorn souls, "love" himself, and even a singer riffing operatically on the word love.
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| Photo by Julieta Cervantes | group appraisal of Parvaneh Scharafali
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Themes of love, lust, trust and rank infidelity are grist for some painful dancing and scenes of sexual/emotional torture. The cluttered stage is also a good analogue for the cluttered and constrained thoughts of a person caught in the painful web of love lies and conflicted emotions. Microphones form a sort of corral for much of the piece, like a circular fight ring from which the combatants are not free to leave. A circular conference table serves similarly as host to both an unavoidable legal showdown and a final scene straight from "Rosemary's Baby" in which final deliberation on a crushed soul takes place.
The sheer seamlessness of the piece is amazing, with beautifully staged ebbs and flows of intensity and pain. The acting by the three protagonists is crystal clear, even when repeating the same lines for the eleventh time. And typical for a Forsythe piece, the awesome physical fluidity of his dancers goes almost unnoticed in the delivery of the whole package. The lighting and sound design are so powerful it is easy to lose track of the tiny players on stage, an apt recreation of how insignificant love and life can make us, especially while "decreating".
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OCTOBER 8, 2009
OFFOFFOFF.COM • THE GUIDE TO ALTERNATIVE NEW YORK
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