The Times - Arts 13 de MAY de 1999
The Times - Arts
London, UK
13/MAY/1999
By Debra Craine
COME FLYING DOWN TO RIO
Brazil’s Deborah Colker has an eclectic CV, counting pianist and professional volleyball player (she was part of the Rio de Janeiro official team for two years) among her achievements. Now, following the establishment of her Rio-based dance company in 1993, she is internationally recognised as a choreographer. She makes her British debut this week at London’s Peacock Theatre, presenting Rota, a 1997 work already seen by more than 200,000 people in Europe and South America. An eyecatching piece of dance-theatre for 13 men and women (including Colker herself), it confirms the Brazilian’s talent for giving theatre-goers a good night out.
She herself describes Rota as "motion in search of entertainment" and that is all you really need to know about her work. Colker looks for movement everywhere - in the ballet studio, the gym, the circus and the street - and assigns no hierarchical value to any of it. Movement is basic, movement is fun.
When Rota begins, skipping along cheekily to Mozart, the steps are recognisably classical, revved up and subverted by colloquial gesture. Colker loves to follow the beat; every note is matched by a discernible step - or even scratch of the head. Her musical attention span is short, and soon we are 200 years on from Mozart, bang into Aphex Twin and the Chemical Brothers. Pachelbel, Johann Strauss and Tangerine Dream make an appearance in the second half, although the musical credits are far too many to mention. Colker’s choreographic style is equally embracing; jumping, rolling and ripping along it mimics the various ways we use our physical energy, be it rowing, skiing, running or dancing.
Gringo Cardia’s set design is stunning: a huge black-and-white dress pattern covers floor and backdrop in the first half, a giant wheel (courtesy of the fairground or the hamster cage?) dominates the second. "Rota," asserts Colker, "is based on lines, circles, maps.
" Choreography in the second half is in two distinct parts. The first, delivered in a fog and danced in a reverie, is inspired by the absence of gravity, or "the atmosphere that surrounds astronauts". The dancers, impressively strong and flexible, move deliberately through a series of slow tumbles and balances. Some of it is a clear reference to tumblers in a circus; some of it calls to mind the illusionist dance-theatre of Pilobolus, in which body shapes take on alien connotations.
It is the final section of Rota which really ignites the audience. This, simply called Wheel, was inspired both by entertainment parks (Disney World in particular) and the Earth’s rotation. A 22ft wheel with ladders for spokes becomes a playground for Colker’s fearless performers. They scramble up this imposing - and spinning - structure (weight 1.5 tonnes) with the casualness of commuters hopping on a No 38 bus. They ride the wheel’s dangerous momentum; they hang suspended off its ladders and wrap themselves around its rungs.
Even as our jaw drops at their athletic daring, we can appreciate their stylistic grace. It is a giddying effect, a blazing circus ballet that thrilled the first-night audience. Rota may not tell us much about Colker’s credentials as a choreographer - we need to see more dance and fewer effects for that - but as an entertainer she has certainly cracked it.
