Dark red and black photo of the dance project by PRICE called Melodies are so far my best friend – showing a cloaked man standing on a raised table, surrounded by audience members in Covid facemasks

article

ImPulsTanz Vienna: one-sentence reviews

Read Icon Read
Time Icon Pink 3 min
PRICE: Melodies Are So Far My Best Friend, at ImPulsTanz Vienna 2021. Photo: © Yako One
S pink identity

Twenty-six performances from ImPulsTanz Vienna 2021 – condensed into one sentence each

Hover over the image to read the review.

Alexandra Bachzetsis: Private Song
Photo © Mathias Voelzke
“Toy boys and femme Dom in acid wash serenade one another in tantalisingly toxic threesome.”
Performance info
Ian Kaler: Points Of Departure Hyphen
Photo © Eva Wuerdinger
“Emo teenager vibes meet discombobulated text, great ghost jokes and butter-smooth dancing.”
Performance info
Sophia Rodríguez: Ostentation Project
Photo © Leontien Allemeersch
“An acrobatic, sensual, glitter-adorned middle finger to patriarchy and colonisation, from Venezuela with love.”
Performance info
Meg Stuart/Damaged Goods: Cascade
Photo © Martin Argyroglo
“Nine explorers visit, nurture and destroy an artificial galactic landscape, exploring thrilling peaks and tiresome valleys, always spectacularly lost.”
Performance info
Petar Sarjanović: Everything I Don’t Know, I’ve Stolen
Photo © Cillian O’Neill
“A hermetic contemporary dance piece for contemporary dancers about contemporary dance, where a couple of poetic memories punctuate an otherwise niche self-referential layer cake.”
Performance info
Raja Feather Kelly: UGLY (Black Queer Zoo)
Photo © Maria Baranova
“Emotional and virtuosic, UGLY challenges perceptions of the black queer body in a yellow kaleidoscopic (dis)play of hyper-pop images and supple-sleek-seismic mood shifts.”
Performance info
Frédéric Gies & Weld Company: Tribute
Photo © Thomas Zamolo
“A ravishing cast of techno sylphides raves in formation, in an ecstatic and delicate homage to Dominique Bagouet; think Berghain cancan with extreme somatic smarts, and bass resonating all the way to your ribcage.”
Performance info
Astrit Ismaili: MISS
Photo © Alwin Poiana
“Expectations skyrocket when this musical begins with three hilariously sharp solo songs by a flower, Cicciolina and Miss Kosovo, yet the energy plummets when the choreographer takes over the stage and transforms the two other protagonists into their backup singers.”
Performance info
Cie. Maguy Marin: Umwelt
© Hervé Deroo
“The hypnotic dramaturgy, visual poetry and original cast members have aged beautifully, but culturally inappropriate costumes, overwhelmingly heteronormative representation and unsolicited dick flashes have not.”
Performance info
ZOO/Thomas Hauert: How to Proceed
Photo © Bart Grietens
"How to address your privileges without getting demoralised asks the choreographer, before spending an hour not addressing them at all and presenting mediocre dance constellations instead."
Performance info
Neopost Foofwa – Foofwa d’Imobilité: Dancewalk – Retroperspectives
© Tatiana Yudina
“A film about the Dancewalks project backs dancer Alizée Sourbé while she narrates and echoes the ramifications of this choreographic public intervention, which seems to have grown from a humble poetic proposal to a global, political and at times questionable protest format.”
Performance info
Meg Stuart/Damaged Goods: Violet
Photo © Laura Van Severen
“Accompanied by a live drummer, five dancers gesticulate and circumvolute in and out of transcendental states, in an epic, sweaty and trippy journey across the empty stage.”
Performance info
Lau Lukkarila: NYXXX
Photo © Franzi Kreis
“Gliding around a sleek multimedia altar, Lukkarila summons the Greek goddess of the night, in a highly lubricated and intimate offering of erotic intelligence.”
Performance info
Jérôme Bel: Isadora Duncan
Photo © Camille Blake
“A lecture performance in which Bel narrates the tragic life of modern dance pioneer Isadora Duncan, while 70-year-old Duncan technique teacher Elisabeth Schwartz expertly demonstrates some of her choreographies (but doesn’t get to speak).”
Performance info
Idio Chichava, Converge+: Sentido Unico
Photo © Yako One
“A sensuous and impeccably executed duet where playful seduction between a man and a woman dismally ends with him choking her without warning or explanation.”
Performance info
Louise Lecavalier: Stations
Photo © André Cornellier
“Lecavalier’s skills as a dancer are undeniable, but the dramaturgy and staging don’t match her powerful and hypnotic presence.”
Performance info
Raja Feather Kelly: Hysteria (UGLY Part 2)
Photo © Kate Enman
“Immersed in a bubble-gum-pink life-size doll box, Kelly activates his monochrome surroundings and takes us on a glamorous yet meticulous emotional roller-coaster.”
Performance info
Deborah Hazler/Angry Agnes Productions: That Rant and Rave
Photo © Franzi Kreis
“Huffing and puffing as a choreographic strategy turns out to be an articulate, uproarious and at times monotonous method to denounce the raging horrors of the capitalist patriarchy.”
Performance info
Marc Oosterhoff/Cie Moost: Take Care Of Yourself
Photo © Alex Brenner
“Baudelaire spleen meets fratboy energy in this booze-fuelled, stunt-driven and knife-sharp magic show.”
Performance info
Madeleine Fournier/O D E T T A: Labourer
Photo © Tamara Seilman
“A tap-dancing mime laboriously finds her voice amidst automated drums and archive videos of growing plants.”
Performance info
PRICE: Melodies Are So Far My Best Friend
Photo © Yako One
“Gathered around a sloped runway, the audience witnesses a performance concert where melodrama encounters tender humour, while both time and magnificent costumes fold and stretch, transforming endlessly.”
Performance info
Frank Van Laecke, Alain Platel, Steven Prengels/NTGent & Les Ballets C de la B: Gardenia – 10 Years Later
Photo © Luk Monsaert
“A cabaret of grief, decay and extravagance brings aging queer performers to the spotlight, but touching moments get lost between inexplicable fight scenes and problematic jokes.”
Performance info
Platform-K/Michiel Vandevelde/Philippe Thuriot: The Goldberg Variations
Photo © Tom Callemin
“Choreographer creates very pretty dance on very pretty music, juxtaposes it with videos of violent right-wing extremists and calls it political.”
Performance info
Tamara Alegre, Lydia Östberg Diakité, Nunu Flashdem, Marie Ursin, Célia Lutangu: FIEBRE
Photo © Nelly Rodriguez
“Three mega-babes slide, splash and slurp slime in gooey game of flesh and fluids; hotness has never felt so fresh.”
Performance info
Ruth Childs/Scarlett’s: fantasia
Photo © Marie Magnin
“Starting and dropping ideas as often as she changes her multi-coloured wigs, Childs’ nervy composition lacks any sense of urgency; classical canons are upheld but the audience’s attention isn’t.”
Performance info
Raja Feather Kelly: BLUE (UGLY Part 3)
Photo © Yako One
“Couture-wearing alien abducts himself from the constraint of sense-making and favours refusal to perform and sensory overload as alternative strategies.”
Performance info

 

To complement these zippy one-liners, check out Lena Megyeri’s more in-depth account of her week at ImPulsTanz here: springbackmagazine.com/read/one-week-impulstanz-vienna-2021


Location Icon
Vienna, Austria
Publication Icon

More info at www.impulstanz.com
You may also like...