| As a reviewer I don't mind sitting through a worthless production as there's something about venting your spleen in a public domain, that resets the balance better than any refund.
Soul-étude, part of the Festival of Central and Eastern European Arts, is one of those shows so egregious that they merit real vitriol. I spent 50 minutes of my life scrutinizing this mish-mash of physical theatre and associated art works, only to come away with the conclusion that criteria for Arts Council funding may be low enough for me to take my own interpretative dance show on the road next year.
Produced in collaboration with Hammersmith's Riverside Studios, this production was billed as a site-specific 'must see' performance from Czech installation artist Petr Niki, staged in a derelict abattoir in Clerkenwell.
The blurb in the programme was awash with superlatives, the dark and cavernous space in the City held such potential and there was such an air of expectation as the crowd amassed in the makeshift foyer before the start of this production, but enthusiasm and good will waned quickly, as crowd plunged into the indecipherable hell of Soul- etude.
We had been promised an evening of magic, trickery and thrills, shedding new light on human isolation. But it was, to quote another audience member who was also a dancer, "both pretentious and shite."
The audience was shepherded around in the dark by a torch wielding martinet, who rushed us from one beautiful clockwork installation to the next, barking that we had "only five minutes" and could we " please hurry up." No dawdling was allowed, so you never got to appreciate these incredibly intricate mechanical devices, made up of nick nacks and plastic figurines. And considering this was a production exploring how the kinetic energy of the soul breaks out in unexpected ways, it was plain ludicrous that the audience was expected to negotiate the production according to the guidelines of such an officious bossy boots. At one point our guide could even be heard whispering: "Hey lady! Get back here!" when one of our party failed to tow the line.
The centerpiece in this underground fiasco came when the audience was herded into a long narrow room with two banks of seating, while in the middle four dancers messed about with Perspex table tops, some bowling balls and clockwork toys before tying themselves up with string in a massive cat's cradle.
The only redeeming bit of the entire debacle was the ethereal violins played by the renowned Balanescu Quartet. Given this spine-tingling good score I have no idea how this company came up with such hackneyed pap. Or why people had to pay to watch it.
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