"Lands End" (Compagnie Philippe Genty)

Oh my god, this was amazing. A sort of surrealist dance theatre show, complete with giant puppets, billowing oversized stage-filling balloons, striking lighting, and sliding panels and screens which continually frame and reframe the stage as they move. Taking cues certainly from Magritte (the men in long coats and bowler hats are only the beginning) and probably in some measure from Lacan (re: that latter, I'm thinking naturally of the 'Seminar on The Purloined Letter', etc), too, it's genuinely dream-like, beautiful, unsettling, whimsical, fantastic; and set to music something like a cross between Four Tet and Victorialand, but exceeding any such attempt at categorisation. From our position near the front, in the centre of the row, it was easy to become immersed in the flow of scenes and images while allowing their 'meaning' (or, perhaps, 'narrative') to take shape at a more abstract level. "Lands End" made a lot of sense to me, both emotionally and imaginatively, and more 'intellectually' (in some respects, precisely inasmuch as it elides the distinctions between those various types of responses); I haven't had such a wonderful experience in a theatre setting maybe ever.

(w/ trang + Arthur)