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Friday 4 November 2005

La pudeur des icebergs

On Wednesday we went to The Place to see a dance piece, La pudeur des icebergs by French-Candian choreographer Daniel Leveille. No sets (just black curtains), no costumes (dancers were all naked), just lighting, movement and music. Quite stunning. Except....


The choreography was quite vigorous and so there was quite a lot of noise from the dancer's feet on the sprung floor. The music (Chopin Preludes) was played rather quietly so at times the noise of the dancers obscured it totally. The programme notes credited the sound treatment, but did not actually say who was playing the music. The sound treatment seemed to consist of eratic gaps between the movements, occasional movements breaking off in mid air and two thirds of the way through a sound treatment which sounded as if all the notes from the preludes were being played simultaneously.


I could not have helped thinking that how much more evocative and effective it could have been if we'd had someone playing live. But I sometimes think that the actual musical experience does not always seem important to choreographers


For those who are curious, there's a review with pictures here of a New York performance

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