Bodies are dragged away to loud applause and cheers: a more symbolic beginning Nederlands Dans Theater could not have imagined. With Start Again stresses the international ballet company an exile until 2019 at the port in Scheveningen. A tricky location because remote. But also a dynamic spot. A Dutch choreographer would surely come up with choreography involving ferries, cutters and lifeboats there. NDT, however, opts for the traditional stage box inside: guest choreographers from Peeping Tom don't turn their hand to that. Or rather, they do.
Optical illusion in The Missing Door
You feel like you are in a northern French Van Gogh residence in this blue corner on stage. It might just take a bottle of absinthe to explain what you see. Seven complicated characters come to life in a pop-up picture book, as The Beanery at the Stedelijk Museum. It is illusionary dance: objects, décor pieces and human limbs move inexplicably. The relationships and events with high and disturbingly ad hoc content make you yearn for more like a Netflix series.
Unconventional approach in The Lost Room
And that more follows. As the audience claps and the curtain is open, stagehands change the décor and dancers walk off and on. We are ready for the premiere of part two. Location: a hotel room. A place that is private and precisely not because everyone and everyone else comes there. Thirteen performers, including senior ex-Scapino dancer Bob Verbrugge step off and on. Highlighted by a sublimely intimate pas de deux and a bed scene like you haven't seen before (a head rolling around a torso). Also breathtaking are the whirlwinds of bodies and the way they disappear again like a hoover. Franck Chartier is a perfectionist.
Stop Motion
Paul Lightfoot is a poet. Check out Instagram. And to his ballets. But it is equally difficult to land in this more traditional work by Léon & Lightfoot after defying perception by Carizzo/Chartier. Still, in the piece for eight dancers, an elevated feeling arises with the various duets, Prince Credell's solo in the white dust, and Léon & Lightfoot's moving photographic portrait of daughter Saura. The choreographer duo leans heavily on external resources (film, photo, props, décor) while most of the power lies in simple dance movements at the end.
Hopeful
That NDT's dancers managed to master ideas from Franck Chartier's world within seven weeks deserves a compliment. 'They are great, not me' the choreographer modestly remarked before the start. Now for the challenge of bringing audiences from city and country to the Zuiderstrand Theatre to keep pulling. With a bold approach, it might just succeed.
The Missing Door: Gabriela Carizzo
The Lost Room: Franck Chartier
Stop motion: Sol Léon & Paul Lightfoot
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