schrit_tmacher festival in Aachen - Pulsating physicality

schrit_tmacher festival in Aachen
Pulsating physicality

The National Dance Company Wales performs PULSE at the Stahlbau Strang factory in Aachen

By Thomas Linden

Nobody remains untouched by the melodies of the waltz. The three-four time makes something inside us vibrate, the physiological consequences of which we cannot escape. An archaic moment, so to speak, that Marcos Morau visualises choreographically in his piece „Waltz“. What does what we hear look like? In his work for the National Dance Company Wales, everything begins with an amorphous tangle of snake-like tentacles that wind in all directions. But even this primordial tangle is already swaying sinuously to the sounds of these seductive-acoustic charms from the banks of the Danube. Marcos Morau, who has repeatedly created choreographies for the Tanzhaus Stuttgart, succeeds in creating an unforgettably original dance moment with this piece.
In the Stahlbau Strang factory in Aachen, the Welsh dancers presented the piece in tight-fitting full-body suits that did not even reveal their faces. Glittering in the dark, the anonymous bodies merge into a many-armed creature that stretches and contracts, dissolves into individual parts and reunites to form a centipede. Right here at the beginning of the two-hour dance evening, the Welsh dancers impressively play the greatest trump card of their skills. They work as an ensemble with a confidence and precision that is astonishing. It is the suppleness that becomes the real message of this choreography. What is owed to the music is only too gladly honoured here. A tactile orgy of seduction consisting of eight male and female bodies playing with the shimmer of light. Hands glide over heads and waists, modelling with relish. And when the masks suddenly fall, the eyes are fixed firmly on the audience.

National-Dance-Company-Wales©TANZweb.org_Klaus-Dilger

The movements do not merge into the blissful waltz turns we know from Viennese ballrooms. Instead, the flowing body gestures are brought to an abrupt halt. Like an amphibian whose limbs slowly advance only to suddenly stop, there is an incessant change of pace. „Pulse“ is the title the Welsh dancers have given their evening. Here, the impulses are translated into wonderful physicality. In the second production, „Say Something“, which this innovative troupe presented in Aachen, they demonstrated the creative dimension of sudden inspiration. Here, a group of dancers lounges around on the rehearsal floor. They put on their socks, take a sip from a thermos flask and joke with each other until a young woman starts to dance. They are just short phrases, seen a thousand times. Somehow meaningless, a trial and error. The Welsh show us what the moment looks like when the spark of inspiration has not yet been ignited. A situation of boredom, all the strings still hanging loose, training elements from breakdance and hip-hop.

But of course it doesn’t stop there. The hard electro beats of musicians MC Zani and Dean Yhnell provide the impetus. The dance company from Cardiff gives us an insight into the inspirational processes of dance. Because once someone has followed the lead dancer, the duo grows into a trio, others join in and where there was previously no consistency, the movements suddenly take on meaning. The dance company shows how a language of the body develops from the movements of everyday life that follow function. They open up the workshop of their profession and demonstrate how the art of dance differs from everyday life and sport. There is a lot of humour in this dance piece, the title of which already suggests that something has to happen first in order for the possibility of improvisation to arise in the first place. In their intelligently woven network of relationships between sound and image, rudiments such as throat-clearing, clicking and swallowing are also translated into body movement in the acoustics. The fact that rap and dance are almost mutually dependent is demonstrated to us in a kind of finger exercise. This mixture of strict formal awareness and a friendly, energetic nonchalance inevitably captivated the audience in Aachen. So there was a standing ovation almost on cue.