Paso Doble

Published Thursday 17 January 2008 at 14:15 by Liz Arratoon

Put sculptor/painter Miquel Barcelo together with dancer/choreographer Josef Nadj and ten tonnes of wet clay and stand well back. Commissioned by the 2006 Avignon Festival, this is Paso Doble’s UK premiere - part of both the 30th London International Mime Festival and bite08.

A wide pavement of red clay against a wall of whitewashed clay sets the stage. It looks stylish and graphic. The wall starts to pulsate, swamp-like, as if tennis balls are being thrown at it from behind. Fingers poke through.

Then the performers, or I should say artists, appear in black suits and using outsize modelling tools start roughing up the floor into points and divots. They attack the lunar surface of the wall, which is effectively a giant scraper board, red showing through white, to make cave-painting patterns.

Next they carry on a series of Pere Coll’s unfired clay pots, slap them on their heads and mould them into creatures you would find in a Star Wars’ bar scene. Barcelo then dumps pot after pot on top of Nadj, who gradually becomes part of the mural and gets whitewashed himself. It ends with them both being swallowed headfirst by their own creation.

This is a cross between Gilbert and George and Tony Hart’s Morph, more art installation or sixties ‘happening’ than theatre piece. Maybe they didn’t play enough as children and now feel the need to let go and simply have fun. But this two-step - backed by Alain Mahe’s noisescape - seems more for them than for us.