Dansens Hus in Oslo is situated outside the city centre and built over a fast-flowing stream surrounded by trees. Alan Lucien Øyen’s Still Life takes us one step further into nature in a work where bodies find their primal state, lights and sounds create visions of ethereal beauty, and the space opens to the unconscious and the irrational. Øyen is an artist in tune with performance art in its widest sense and this is another of his choreographies where he takes the art away from any codified constraints to wander in Elysian fields.
Øyen in addition to directing his own company, Winter Guests, is Artist-in-Residence with the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet. His two dancers are well chosen: Daniel Proietto, a longtime collaborator, is joined by Mirai Moriyama, a dancer less known in Europe but with a high profile in Japan. With background knowledge in Kabuki, Butoh, contemporary dance and film, the dancers are the focus of the work and on stage for most of the evening.
The Still Life of the title is better understood as nature morte and relates to our cavalier attitude to the natural world which is being decimated in man-made disasters. However, it is the dance that is central and totally riveting. The choreography, by Øyen, is created in close collaboration with Proietto and Moriyama, dancers who have a fine-tuned understanding of their bodies. Simply dressed in black trousers with bare tops their hair tied back, they move in ways that are thought-provoking and eloquent, underpinning the message that to be human is to be at one with nature. The relationship between the two comes across most strongly in the close contact duets where the bodies move to the same pulse.
There is a fluid quality in Proietto’s musculature, an innate knowledge that remains subliminal offering no resistance and making dance seem as natural as breathing. Moriyama is a dancer of magnetic presence. He brings an exciting level of physical energy to his dance, as he leaps horizontally, falls and rolls with animal power and expertise. The dancers, despite the sometimes athletic quality, never lose the connection with the interior, the source and the centre of power both physical and mental. Whether they are in motion or stillness, they remain eminently watchable.
The lighting, sound and visual setting are an integral part of this production. Used minimally but in a potent manner, they are a constantly changing source of inspiration and delight. There is magic from the opening semicircle of black clad singers intoning with bell-like clarity to the final moments as the stage is covered in glittering metallic foil. The dancers briefly don masks which extend their heads into bird-like hybrids creating unsettling but memorable images. The chorus make a final entrance, their head-covering masks topped with a tangled growth of roots and branches and lit by shards of golden light conjuring the mysterious powers of nature.
It is in the images that the work communicates most strongly. The text, written by Andrew Wale and Øyen, is delivered on walkie talkie devices and opening on the banality of everyday chat: ‘Hello, are you there?’ ‘Yes, I am. Where are you?’ When the text has content of significance, it becomes difficult to usefully process within the density of detail in the production.
There is not a moment when design, (Aida Vaineri and Øyen) score (Henrik Skram) and sound design, (Mathias Grønsdahl) are not important. The grainy air surrounding the dancers seems thick and even murky, when smoke effect is used, it rises like tumbling pillows of cloud. Golden cloaks used by the dancers and chorus are made from a metallic foil that gives a rustling sound effect as well as its brilliant sheen that almost blinds in the rays of light. In the final moments the backdrop of a seascape is briskly lowered, the two dancers now simply dressed in brown trunks make their last dance, close and slow, like a devoted elderly couple. The entire painted scene drops to the floor as a sheet of golden foil is rolled out to cover the stage area. The effects are mesmerising and amazingly beautiful.
It is the quality of the dance that carries the evening, with the important message of climate inaction more hinted at than clarified. There is much to enjoy in the performance and probably a lot more to gain from further viewings to unpack the layers of complexity in a very dense work.
Maggie's trip was paid for by Norwegian National Opera and Ballet
