Performances

Because many of our art models are dancers, Vondelpark Atelier has a soft spot for dance.

Yesterday evening our fine arts teacher Peter Dammers went to see a ballet by dancer and choreographer Laura Rae Bernasconi, at the Belcanto cafe in Amsterdam. Here's his review.

Being a fan of dancers Claudia Lantini (It) and Ana Portela (Port), I felt confident spending my Saturday evening seeing a show of which I didn't know the creator: Laura Rae Bernasconi (USA).

Well, I was in for a treat. There were 4 dancers, 2 live musicians and one technician.

Laura started by surprising her audience with what struck me as a free mini yoga class: We were all encouraged to stretch, bend, take deep breaths and pull faces. The program read "Self massage with audience". Then the dance began.

In "AcroYoga duet" Laura and Ana performed some beautifully choreographed floor acrobatics on evenly beautiful live music played on a nylon guitar by musician Prem Dheera. Then there were solos by dancers Claudia, Becky Spellman (UK) and Ana, each on live music either by guitarist Prem Dheera or pianist Dimitri Bodurov (on grand piano).

The solos had a mesmerizing effect on me. Their sensual choreography seemed playfully improvised on the basis of alienating Indian Temple Dance (Odissi?) poses, in which the dancers constantly and abruptly took on striking emotional expressions. They switched between mournful crying, satanic laughter, crazy lust and what have you. This completely captivated my attention (so much that I almost forgot to take pictures, which I normally do). As I write this it makes me think of how the characters in good novels, theatre plays and movies (and probably in real life) seem to be more interesting the less they are predictable. And, as I discussed with dancer Ana after the show, it made me think of how one has to live through different emotions with someone (a colleague, friend, partner) to get to know this person better.

After the break Laura had the audience do "laughing exercises" on all vowels (a,e,i,o,u), after which a "Group piece" in colourful dresses formed the main dance of the second half of the show, which concluded with a solo by Laura. The music for this second half was very energetic. It sounded like tribal war music: many drums in shifting patterns. In the final "Cypher" the spectators were invited to take to the stage and join the energizing dance :-)

All in all, I very much enjoyed and was inspired by the surprising but totally convincing combination of sensuality, the alienating emotional switches and playful improvisation in this ballet as well as the engagement of the audience.

- Peter Dammers