re:mote voices

Photos: © Erik Berg

Title:I have a secret to tell you (please) leave with me
Artist: Zero Visibility Corp/Ina Christel Johannessen
Venue:The Tramway, Glasgow, Friday 9th June 2007

“I have a secret to tell you (please) leave with me sees two characters chained deep within a cave. Their vision is so restricted they cannot see each other and the only things visible to them are shadows of statues, models and animals cast on the wall from a brightly burning fire. Breaking free, one of the characters escapes into the light of day and for the first time see the real world in all its wonder.”

Sometimes the problem with a dance performance is trying to tie the idea of what it is “about” to what you actually saw. Straight away, we have the description of two people in a cave, and yet we have four performers. Is that me being too literal in my interpretation? Probably, and that’s why we can only regard the description for a minimal/abstract performance in the loosest sense. Large, thin, white walls set the boundaries of the stage, simulating the idea of the suggested cave. The lighting is carefully designed, and expertly applied, shifting to be too intense, to pinpointing players, to flickering off the walls revealing flocks of birds in motion, to guiding the mind to imagined events. The only piece of set on the stage is a wooden horse, which combined with the lighting and the performer comes to life, evokes the mood of that piece of the performance.

I have a secret to tell you (please) leave with me is a production by the Norwegian company Zero Visibility Corp, choreographed by Ina Christel Johannessen. The four performers are Line Tørmoen, Dimitri Jourde, Sittibancha Bamphen and Vebjørn Sundby. Though the two leads are really Line and Dimitri, Line dominating the piece with her performance, while the guys work around her. The performance goes through emotional highs and lows, childish wonder to adult violence, all to a soundtrack of electronic music. As the cut up, glitch electronics play and the dancers react to it, I couldn’t help but think it was Alva Noto, which I confirmed looking at performance notes later. The music went through periods of toybox and acoustic work to the hard cut up dance music, using various pieces by Alva Noto, Goem, Coleen and FM3, all of which sounded great at that volume and with the performance.

* - Watch the video clip on the Zero Corps website for a feel of the piece.