Divine Lands, staged at Merlin in January, was my first encounter with Forte Company; although I have been curious to learn more about their peculiar ‘physical dance theatre’ style for some time.
The title refers to the birth place of western civilization, Ancient Greece. We’re promised an evening of equal parts: text, dance and music – currently a popular technique, and one that’s been tackled from so many different angles that it’s become impossible to know exactly what to expect when we go to see a piece of ‘physical theatre’. The reason for this is probably that the task of merging different performance styles to tell a complete, coherent story is a difficult one.
Horváth Csaba approaches the challenge by aiming for mixture rather than compound. Poetry is created either through spoken text or physical expression. Occasionally, the two forms overlap, but they do not merge.
Consequently, all we get are fragments of the dancers’ imagined Ancient Greece. Pieces of Ionesco’s The Bald Prima Donna undermine earlier extracts of Plato’s profound discussions on the responsibility of poets to their society. Perhaps this is to illustrate that our understanding of history is fragmented by definition.
The cast is divided, in true ancient Greek style, into (anti)heroes versus chorus, although this split is not always strictly kept to, as duets are performed in various combinations. Some of these duets offer genuine stage poetry of the body through some sophisticated and creative choreography. Images of suffering, fear, even love become recognizable, just as we see them on the remains of Ancient Greek vases.
These moments, however, also reveal some of the weaker parts of the piece, where I felt that gaps were filled with unimaginative choreographies which, beautiful as they are, convey little meaning.
Rhythm is very important; this is one of the most successful effects of the fragmented nature of the piece. Divisions between moments of energy and calm are well defined, and the sound-scape, created with music, silence and skilful vocal experimentation by the performers is a performance in itself.
If the aim of unifying text and dance is to communicate a message more powerfully, I’d suggest that Divine Lands does not quite rise to the challenge. The message, if there was a clear and definite one, escaped me. What the performance does achieve is a beautiful, dreamlike landscape of strong, sophisticated images and fragmented thoughts that are a pleasure to watch.