Evening Standard 19 de JULY de 2000
Evening Standard
London, UK
19/JULY/2000
By Anne Sacks
RUNNING ON VERVE AND STYLE
Deborah Colker is one of dance’s great characters. A hyperactive former volleyball star, musician, psychology graduate and scion of Russian Jews living in Brazil, she fell in love with contemporary dance aged 18. Now she leads a group of beautiful people from diverse dance backgrounds whom she has moulded into an impassioned and energetic troupe of what ballet’s Derek Deane calls aesthetic athletes, for that is exactly what they are.
They made their London debut a year ago with a hit show called Rota, which contained a giant wheel as its centrepiece. This time, as part of the Barbican’s Brazil festival, the company from Rio de Janeiro brings Mix, which comprises excerpts from Colker’s first two works. Vulc?o, the first, is slight and could be viewed as her route map into her art. The parody of the catwalk falls flat, despite its wit, because fashion is so good at parodying itself. We feel we’ve seen it all before. The medley of duets is diverting as couples connect in leaps, vaults, dives and dizzying lifts, but their kinetic jinks are one-dimensional.
The second half is awesome. Colker gets into her stride with Velox, inspired by Leni Riefenstahl’s film Olympia. Indeed, there are hints of the 1936 Berlin Olympics with dancers in ritualised moves and militaristic formations. She draws a connection between sport and dance by creating a style that glorifies muscle control and then she presses these hyper-controlled bodies into flowing phrases. Colker is the queen of the fluent phrase. She examines the biomechanics of movement in a slow piece, set to a sonic boom, in which four dancers swim in space.
The ending is spectacular - and must be seen to be believed. Dancers climb the back wall with only rows of little grips for support. They turn mountaineering into art and art into mountaineering. They are as elegant as butterflies and as comfortable as chimps swinging on branches. They flip, balance and skitter with dash. Perhaps it is their nonchalant defiance of gravity that is so astounding.
