Every single dance in one hour

The Beau Geste Company’s Dominique Boivin brought down the curtain on La Fete 2012 last Friday and Saturday with “My Own History of Dance”.
Continuing the festival’s interdisciplinary spirit with its mix of dance, speech and multimedia, the show took the audience through the Frenchman’s personal relationship with the world of Western dance and its masters.
There were glimpses of many different styles, from ancient tribal dance, medieval marches and the dainty steps of the European royal courts to butoh, tap and contemporary.
As we came closer to the present and the dance forms ventured further outside the frames erected by masters of the past, Boivin symbolically broke the wooden frames that surrounded him onstage.
There was a visit from mad Giselle, from one of history’s most important ballets. Isadora Duncan appeared, wrapped in that dishevelled scarf that ended up strangling her in reality. And Tanztheater mistress Pina Bausch was there in her trademark plain dress and high heels.
Boivin embodied these forms and figures with grace and humour, but he relied too much on physical comedy. Grabbing your crotch, a la Michael Jackson, has really been done to death.
As well, centuries of dance history cannot be satisfactorily reviewed in one hour. The attempt to merge education with entertainment was admirable, but the performer could only touch the surfaces, so the show became a flurry of name-dropping.
“Pichet Klunchun and Myself,” staged at the festival three weeks before, was much more successful in blending performance (the doing) with pedagogy (the teaching).
Pichet and Jerome Bel got the balance just right in an informative study of classical khon and modern conceptual dance. Viewers saw symbols unravelled and heard deeply personal stories while at the same time learning history and philosophy.
The same dance-filled weekend that featured Dominique Boivin also included Vidura Amranand taking a risk by not giving her audience at the Pridi Banomyong Institute what it expected.
“The Floating Project” was billed as contemporary dance, but there were no dance steps in the conventional sense. And Vidura declared that she wanted viewers to simply absorb the show, not read into it.
At first the four performers in casual clothes stared at the audience, variously smiling, giggling and bursting into hysterical laughter. Spectators laughed back or sat in bewildered silence.
Then the dancers wove strings of thread all over the room and began floating beneath the cobweb, as if in a trance, and into the empty spaces left. It had a loose structure, but all the movements were improvisational.
Shows like this have merit in allowing the performers freedom to explore the skills embedded in their bodies. However, the movements are often repetitive and sometimes verge on the boring.
Despite Nana Dakin and Thanapol Virulhakul’s superb contact improvisation – which oozed warmth and sensuality – I found myself zoning out many times as the performers floated about.
Perhaps this means Vidura succeeded in shutting down the viewer’s analytical brain, but at the same time there was the danger that our minds might have drifted away from the show altogether. It’s nice to feel relaxed, but complete loss of concentration is another story.

LA FETE FILMS
La Fete’s live performances have concluded but screenings of French movies continue through Sunday.
You can get tickets at the SF World Cinema at CentralWorld or in advance at (02) 268 8888.
Learn more at www.LaFete-Bangkok.com and its Facebook page.