Evening Standard 12 de MAY de 1999
Evening Standard
London, UK
12/MAY/1999
By Anne Sacks
THUMBING A NOSE AT CONVENTION
Brazil is famous for its footballers, not its dancers. But this zesty company of 14 fit, athletic, finely honed dancers could run Ronaldo off the pitch unless he peps up by the next World Cup. They make their British debut by launching the Turnin World season of dance from abroad with Rota, a breathtaking fusion of dance and gymnastics that spotlights the virtuosity of the human body.
The hyperactive Colker is the driving force and also dances. She is a Venus flytrap who draws you into her world with twisted classical ballet and the gobbles you up with gymnastically inspired movement that defies traditions of contemporary dance. Yet, through globalisation, Rota is easily identifiable as modern dance.
Dancers with eclectic backgrounds are whipped into a sleek, almost romantically harmonious, house style. They start with ballet that rolls, bumps and distorts with legs skimming past jaws to facilitate a bite of toes. Women in party frocks with full skirts could do with crash helmets. You want wonderful ability, they seem to say, we can do that. Then they tear up the rules and launch into unexpected, inventive and often witty movement that requires superhuman balance, control and agility. Bravery does not go amiss.
In gym clothes or bikinis, they rip and dazzle. They fly on to another’s shoulder or leap lightly over each other like frogs in a line.
A man slides his feet under two women and walks them like a pair of skis and, as a leaning tower, threatens to topple. They ride a giant wheel, which becomes their playground. The piece builds to a climax that never comes but is quite cleverly per-empted by a sequence to an overblown waltz that nearly amounts to self-parody. This is highly individual dance that thumbs its nose at convention.
