Sydney Theatre
Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Damien Jalet
January 9, 2012
Babel is a highly multicultural and collaborative work co-choreographed by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Damien Jalet, rising names on the contemporary dance scene in Europe. Created and premiered in Antwerp, Belgium, in 2010, the work is not intended as a literal narrative of the biblical story but takes as its starting point the moment when God punishes the people who have built a towering edifice in his name by scattering them across the world into different cultures, lands and languages so they can no longer understand each other.
An eclectic range of musical rhythms and song help to establish an ethnic diversity integral to the theme, combining east and west with medieval music, taiko drumming and Hindi beats. The music is all live and performed by a group of five versatile musicians upstage who were only just visible behind dark gauze. The dancers are mostly costumed in casual everyday clothing that is culturally non specific.
At heart Babel is all about language, both verbal and gestural, which unites and divides us. To this end, the 13 dancers (from a wide variety of cultural and ethnic backgrounds) fight dominate each other or embrace and work together in a performance which is strikingly relevant to global politics. This duality flows into the contrasting dynamics of the choreography. Two inventively fluid and passionate duets are seemingly unlimited by the constant body contact required. The two bodies truly move as one, with both female dancers posessing the controlled strength to lift their male partners with ease. The duets contrast with the roughly blocked, high energy movement in much of the group work. Aggressive, defiant and primal in nature, it required an enormous amount of stamina from the dancers.
Yet even the most chaotic looking group scenes are choreographed with underlying balance and symmetry, echoed by the three dimensional cuboid frames which dwarf them. Designed by sculptor and set designer Antony Gormley, these huge geometrical sculptures serve as interactive barriers, both real and imagined, between the dancers. They are spun around, rolled over, pulled apart and stacked one inside the other, sometimes at great speed, introducing an element of danger as the barefoot dancers jump through and dance within the often moving formations. The frames also suggest different places and situations on an otherwise bare stage, such as big city skyscrapers, airport security barricades or constrainments around a group of shuffling prisoners.
Most of the dancers had speaking as well as dancing parts, with two taking on characters particularly familiar to a westernised, English-speaking audience. Darryl E Woods seemed to represent corporate America, moving from a position of power, greed and superiority (unscrupulous real estate/dot com salesman and know-it-all) to a position of humility and weakness (beggar on a street corner). His strong presence demanded a response from the audience, echoing the often mixed feelings America evokes in other countries. Swedish dancer Ulrika Kinn Svensson parodied a mostly passive Barbie doll whose robotic movement was frequently manipulated or directed by other cast members. Sometime air hostess, always object of male attention, she towered above and tottered around the rest of the cast in an awe-inspiring pair of thigh high, black, shiny platform boots. With long fair hair and a mostly blank expression enhanced by very thick false eyelashes, she had a real knack for getting laughs by playing it straight.
At close to two hours without an interval this performance fully engaged its audience and maintained an energetic momentum. Although Babel touched on some big issues, it never came off as self righteous or ìpolitically correctî. Rather it was an eye opening piece of dance theatre with a deft touch of humour throughout.
- GERALDINE HIGGINSON
See the Feb/Mar issue of 'Dance Australia' for Malcolm Rock's interview with Damien Jalet at his headquarters in Belgium.