2: Dialogue with Lucinda
The Performance
Fascinated by the radical and deceptively simple minimalism of Lucinda Childs’ early work, Beutler chose to remake two of her silent dance pieces, Radial Courses (1976) and Interior Drama (1977), setting the latter to a specially composed work by DJ/producer Gary Shepherd. In July 2011 Gary Shepherd also composed a new soundtrack for Radial Courses in collaboration with Aleksandar Grujic and Robbert van Hulzen.
The underlying choreographic scores are captivating and indecipherably complex. Radial Courses is based on three movement sequences in a constantly shifting, circulatory composition. In Interior Drama five dancers conform to an apparently perfect system, moving in repetitive and hallucinatory patterns. Childs describes her own work as an ‘intense experience of intense looking and listening’. Beutler’s reinterpretations centre on the individual dancer’s efforts and responsibilities within the group patterns, revealing parallel realities and the ritualistic qualities of both dances.
Childs often operates like a sculptor rendering her dances into objects that can be turned around, observed from many angles… each dance, for the spectator, is a process of remembering, noticing, making contrasts and comparisons, constructing patterns and making sense of their juxtapositions to other nearly identical patterns. (Sally Banes, “Lucinda Childs: Making the world Whole” In: Performance, December 1981)
credits
Concept & choreography
Nicole Beutler
Original choreography
Lucinda Childs
Music composition
Gary Shepherd (icw. Aleksander Grujic and Robbert Van Hulzen)
Lighting design
Minna Tiikkainen
Made in collaboration with:
Artistic assistance by
Ty Boomershine, Bojana Mladenovic
and the Dancers
Hillary Blake Firestone, Naiara Mendioroz Azkarate, Aimar Pérez Gali, Javier Vaquero Ollero, Marjolein Vogels
Second cast
Airen Koopmans, Inge van Huijkelom, Goran Turnsek, Ty Boomershine
Costumes
Jessica Helbach
Technique
Martin Kaffarnik
Production
Josta Obbink
Many thanks to
Hester van Hasselt, Frederic Gies, Felix Ritter, Cristiana Ruggieri
Commisioned by Cover #2 - festival with remakes of dance pioneers made by contemporary choreographers - in coproduction with NBprojects
reviews
The dancers hop across the stage, seemingly not bothered by- or anaware of- the strict regime which their lightness is subject of.
(Bregtje Schudel, Het Parool, 29/11/2010)
Beutler -one of the more interesting new dance makers in the Netherlands- exposes choreographic processes: the dancers’ sense of themselves and the way the audience looks upon them. And this is the conceptual message that lies at the heart of her dance. Beutler’s cover is a veritable feast of physical suspense.
(Sander Hiskemuller, Trouw, 29/3/2010)
As the sweat begins to run, the dizzying impression is a combination of a child’s playground game and an army squad drilling on a parade ground in hell.
(Neil Norman, The Stage, 30/10/2010)
Nicole Beutler adapts two choreographies by Lucinda Childs, creating a highly engaging work ****
(Mirjam van der Linden, 26/3/2010, Volkskrant)