Firsts - Programme Three

Published Thursday 29 November 2007 at 15:55 by Gavin Roebuck

Pre show juggler Rob Horsman entertains the audience in the foyer with his crystal ball manipulations.

In Laal Shaari (red dress), Amina Khayyam uses the Kathak dance form to tell the story of her mother who was as a young bride denied everything a woman of her generation would desire. Slow moving and deeply personal to its performer and creator, at 20 minutes it manages to get tedious.

Virta (flow) is a more interesting and dynamic movement piece by Tanja Raman about how thought travels a less predictable journey than water which follows the path of least resistance. This is a successful collaboration with the voice of Philippa Reeves, and manipulated sound and images by John Collingswood.

Nonetheless, Still Thinking by Alit Kreiz and Anton Mirto is a humorous and quirky piece. These experimentalists looking like aliens masked in black tights, stretched high into the rigging, are at first two faceless bodies that move to an invisible set of instructions. Scissors free first a tongue, then a breast, and a face with a cruciform lengthening of her arms - this is an out of the ordinary study.

Real Man based on Jack London’s gritty Call of the Wild has Blind Summit Theatre cleverly manipulating a life size puppet and a dog to music by Jonathan Cooper.

With after show music in the foyer by Cimarron from Columbia and an opportunity for the audience to meet the performers, it is an interesting and engaging evening by ROH2.