Friday 6 June 2008

*** "reading room" (jonathan lunn dance company with miranda richardson)


with miranda richardson
words by anthony minghelle
dancers from EDge

queen elizabeth hall, southbank
http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/dance-performance/productions/jonathan-lunn-dance-company-39208


Reading Room places different lives, relationships, connections, disconnections, pacts, secrets and lies all under the microscope in this Southbank Centre commissioned dance work.

Award-winning choreographer and director, Jonathan Lunn, has teamed up with award-winning playwright and director Anthony Minghella (The English Patient) to present this remarkable series of short dances skilfully accompanied by a live spoken soundtrack, featuring actors Juliet Stevenson (Truly Madly Deeply) and Miranda Richardson (Blackadder, Harry Potter), and dancers from EDge, the Postgraduate Performance Group of LondonContemporary Dance School.

‘A gem of choreographic ingenuity’ (Guardian).

Please note: Juliet Stevenson appears on Thursday 5 June and Miranda Richardson appears on Friday 6 June.

exceptional experience the lighting was very much a part of this show.
in the first piece the lighting seemed almost solid.
stunning dancing.

and the choreography - brilliant and completely mesmerising - featured very fast staccato movements with numerous quick freezes that allowed moments upon moments of time in freeze- frame.
two dancers in particular stood out - chris and ? - but all the dancing was had a fantastic precision and fluidity.

the beckett piece was a glorious conundrum of circular writing that nevertheless managed to still move thru a narrative. chris danced this with miranda reading from the table with choreography that was simultaneously recognisable without being a literal mime and wonderfully evocative

the final piece written and recorded by anthony minghella about the need to

"take great care in connecting A with A and remembering that C should be in the
centre and is very tender"

was both hilarious and very moving

and fantastice use of screens coupled with fab lighting to provide different spaces (these were wheeled about by the dancers into different formations.

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