ROSAS ‘CESENA’ at CARRIAGEWORKS

ROSAS ‘CESENA’ at CARRIAGEWORKS

CESENA, ROSAS companion piece to EN ATTENDANT, is just as mesmerising.

It starts with a snap to blackout and in the gloom a full throated call to the dawn by a nude male. Throughout the show there is a sense of ancient pagan ritual and worship, a hymn to the sun and creation.

In EN ATENDANT the dominant visual theme was a simple straight line of earth at the front of the stage (that was worn down by the dancers moving across it), in CESENA it is a huge circle that the dancers obliterate with their movements.

In CESENA there is a feeling that the dancers were like free ,bobbing molecules .De Keersmaeker worked closely with Bjorn Schmelzer and his graindelavoix ensemble. The singers dance and the dancers sing .We become absorbed in the very tricky bubbling, rippling, tumbling rhythms of the glorious acapella voices . For one section the eerie ticking of a metronome is used. There is also a rhythm of call and response. In one section the cast sing while lying down or sitting.

Stillness contrasted with explosive movement is used too. Some sections of the work have huge blocks of movement by the entire cast, at others there are small short solos. In some parts there were set line of movement and synchronised walking was again featured. Choreographically for me the work has snippets that were reminiscent of Pina Bausch and Siobhan Davies .

There was a lot more floor work, rolls, slips, slides. There are amazing lifts and rolls, lunges and jumps and the use of fall and recovery and off-balance.

For the finale there is a magnificent coup de theatre where the back doors are opened -as if returning us to the ‘real’ world? offering vistas of possibilities? – and the cast vanishes upstage left.

A breathless, stunned pause and then the audience erupted with fiercely enthusiastic applause.

ROSAS ‘CESENA’ played at Carriageworks on the 14th and 15th September, 2012.

© Lynne Lancaster

16th September, 2012

Tags: Sydney Stage Reviews- ROSAS Dance Company, CESENA, Carriageworks, Olalla Aleman, Haider, Al Timimi, Bostjan Antoncic, Aron Blom, Carlos Garbin, Marie Goudot, Lieven Gouwy, David Hernandez, Matej Kejzar, Mikael Marklund, Tomas Maxe, Julien Monty,Chrysa Parkinson ,Marius Peterson, Michael Pomero, Albert Riera, Gabriel Schenker, Yves Van Handenhove,Sandy Williams, Sydney Arts Guide, Lynne Lancaster