It was Olafur Eliasson's involvement that caught my attention and Jamie xx's on top of it that made this a must-see and both of their work comes through very clearly and spectacularly in this context. And because I'm basically ignorant when it comes to dance, contemporary or otherwise, Wayne McGregor's name didn't mean anything to me (I gather he is big), but the dancing, both as choreographed and performed by dancers from McGregor's company and the Paris Opera Ballet (whose collaboration with Alex Prager, incidentally, has brought me some pleasure at intervals over the past few months) is terrific, in part because of all the ways in which it's precisely imprecise, unfluid and out of sync, creating all kinds of interesting effects in conjunction with the mirrors in Eliasson's staging.
So I thought "Tree of Codes" was great even though somehow I struggled to stay 'in' it for the whole time - and it's relatively brief, at only a bit over an hour, at that. Maybe it was just one of those things, compounded by the somewhat limited visibility from our (very close to the stage) seats. But, notwithstanding, overall it was definitely something, with moments that were really sublime - most frequently when there were only a limited number of dancers on stage, two or three or four - and a general sense of joy.
Incidentally, made me think a little bit of that Knife opera "Tomorrow, in a year", also from the Melbourne Festival a few years back - but much more successful (and more focused on the dance aspect).
(w/ trang and Meribah)
So I thought "Tree of Codes" was great even though somehow I struggled to stay 'in' it for the whole time - and it's relatively brief, at only a bit over an hour, at that. Maybe it was just one of those things, compounded by the somewhat limited visibility from our (very close to the stage) seats. But, notwithstanding, overall it was definitely something, with moments that were really sublime - most frequently when there were only a limited number of dancers on stage, two or three or four - and a general sense of joy.
Incidentally, made me think a little bit of that Knife opera "Tomorrow, in a year", also from the Melbourne Festival a few years back - but much more successful (and more focused on the dance aspect).
(w/ trang and Meribah)
