16 Kasım 2017 Perşembe

“Quick Scan”[1] for Re-lic

Berna Kurt
February, 2017

Eight dancers on the performance space (one is hidden below a cover)… playing with Christmas ornaments making up the frontiers of the fictional ‘stage separating the performance and the audience spaces…. interaction with the audience…

Then the show begins… No more eye contact with the audience… Building of the fourth wall…

Solo dances, short and longer duets, trios, collective dances...

Usually a fixed rhythm and movements following it… Individual reaction(s) against some physical, psychological, social, political restraints?

Embracings… much more embracings… Some trials of moving, acting or becoming ‘together’?

Dancing in demi-point, following a syncopated rhythm: 123, 123, 12… 123, 123, 12…

Hitting the body and making sounds out of it… Screams, talks, breathing… Some ‘body music’ or ‘body percussion’ moments?

Repeating some movement phases with arms up and down… Dancing/walking in a moving circle, then moving in and out the fixed circle, touching the chests… reminding some ritualistic or folkloric-like scenes… for much of us, the audience from Turkey accustomed to see such representations…


The choreographic strategy looks like orienting the performers to act ‘together’ but not ‘synchronical’: individuality in collectivity is remarkable… An intelligent strategy especially when performers have very different backgrounds, experiences and physicalities and time for rehearsal is quite limited.

Easy to follow the performance, it doesn’t ‘demand’ so much from us... it doesn’t question the limits or the definitions of ‘dance’ or ‘performance’…

(Attention, the following part may include a spoiler!)

The ending is surprising: a video screening and a quote from Mahatma Gandhi: “An Eye for an Eye Will Make the Whole World Blind”…
A little bit confused or not quite prepared for it? The ‘message’ looks like something ‘alien’, something ‘pasted’ to the performance: Christmas hopes for the ‘West’ but war, destruction, disaster, hunger for the ‘rest’ (of the world)?


…………………………………

R e - l i c after Re-Rau
a k a “burn’t”

16 December 2016, Akbank Sanat / İstanbul

Concept - Choreography: Korhan Başaran

Dancers: Beril Şenöz, Umut Sevgul, Melissa Ugolini, Evrim Akyay, Kamola Rashidova, Canan Yücel Pekiçten

“Re-lic asks audiences to examine what we find most important in our lives, what we truly care about and how can we pay better attention to the world surrounding us. Even though it’s not always easy, human beings must find a way of sharing hope and finding light.” (http://www.akbanksanat.com/en/detay/16-12-2016/modern-dans-gosterisi)




[1] Thank you Orsolya Bálint for the terminology J