DV8 Physical Theatre, UK’s leading makers of highly physical dance, was one of the company’s that Tanja Liedtke got her start in. Their legacy of performance marrying intense and beautiful movement with narrative can be seen in Tanja’s work. Click the picture below to see a duet from DV8’s dance film Cost of Living:

[Watch the duet starting around the 1 minute mark to see Tanja in action.]

A new arts blog called Artsography – dedicated to cataloguing and reviewing local art events attended by the blog’s 2 authors – has landed on the scene. Check out their latest post on Theatre Replacement & Tim Etchells’ That Night Follows Day.

Production name – Je suis sang
Subtitle – A Medieval Fairy Tale
Featured – “A battalion of armored knights parad[ing] alongside bloodied brides, satyrs and medieval surgeons” (NY Times). Plus everything you see in the picture above.
First performed – 2001 (for France’s Festival d’Avignon and Belgium’s deSingel)
Total number of performers – 24 (actors, dancers and musicians)
Le Monde called it – “…what living theater should be.”

[Jan Fabre is bringing his company Troubleyn to OtB in May with Orgy of Tolerance. His career spans almost 30 years and includes some amazing images and stories. Keep watching the OtB blog in the weeks leading up to the West Coast debut of Fabre for information on some of his previous works!]

Nature Theater of Oklahoma just premiered their newest work – Rambo Solo – at the SoHo Rep. The NY Times reviewed the opening. A quick quote:

Among the weird pleasures of “Rambo Solo” is letting your attention stray from the live performer to one or another of the filmed ones, noting the small differences in inflection and rhythm, the moments when the live Mr. Oberzan and the filmed ones are in exact synchronization.

WalesOnline just posted an article about Tanja Liedtke and the performances of Twelfth Floor playing over the weekend there. Includes a nice little mention of construct touring here…

In early 2007, LondonDance did a great little interview with Tanja Liedtke. Read the article and learn more about her thoughts on Romeo Castellucci, DV8 Physical Theatre and more.

Get your construct tickets here.

And because the pictures from construct generally cheer me up, here’s this:

Welcome to our review blog for That Night Follows Day. Read our patron reviews, press reviews, and click on the Comments button to read the comments of others. Take a moment post your own thoughts!

This show reminded me of growing up, an always constant process. While watching the kids onstage, reciting lines they surely couldn’t understand yet or care about, it became obvious that this show is for grown-ups, not for kids. It brought back memories of being a kid, and that huge divide between kids and adults. Everyone over 16 or so was an adult, therefore a sort of enemy, and didn’t really understand.And now I am an adult and I don’t understand *them* anymore. I do sometimes forget that kids are people, and not just cute or annoying pests, but people with inner lives who are still innocent and should be protected. I thought about how parents do the best they can and how some have more luck and more love to give, and try to teach their children that. And others aren’t so lucky and how their children have a lot of misery right from the beginning. How things like fear or hatred are learned just like learning your boring times tables. And I thought about how we learn things, and how much of it is just adults bullshitting. Or adults spouting platitudes that they know are crap, but for some reason think will work on kids. Things like, “there’s nothing to be scared of”, or “think nice thoughts and you’ll be able to sleep” and especially “things will be ok”. Things that you still tell yourself, even though you know there are things to be scared of and that things might not be ok. I wonder how the lines affected the kids – I think the kids were probably just having a great time being on stage, and know I would’ve loved to perform this show when I was a kid. Especially if I got to swear! But this is obviously not a show for kids. It’s talking to adults.I wonder how much of it they understand? Kids are necessarily self-centered and don’t really think of adults as people. They don’t think much about other kids being other people. It’s hard even now to remember that other people exist and it’s not just me in the world. So – I don’t know if they will be affected by the lines they recited or if this play somehow is using them. I don’t think so, but I’d be interested to hear what parents thought. I almost forgot they were kids, they stood so still and looked so accusingly at the audience. I was reminded when they had a dance break near the end of the show and started spazzing out, how kids do. Then I remembered that they were actual children. This show made me remember so much that I’d forgotten – how things were so hopeful and magical and learning something cool for the first time was so fun – learning how to be alive in the world. I’m still not sure what I think the play was trying to say. I was bored at parts, but it drew me in and I was mesmerized after awhile. It obviously affected me somehow, because I am still thinking about it today. But I can’t quite put my finger on how, exactly.

- Erin

I woke up confused, after a night of dreams delivered directly from City of Lost Children. When I went to sleep, I was feeling pretty good and had enjoyed, but not been terribly moved by, Theatre Replacement’s That Night Follows Day. The show is like a Greek chorus without a plot, a technique which impressed, bored, mesmerized and released me (in that order). The 17 actors are no doubt talented and fully committed to their kid-ness, but one tiny girl kept distracting me with her strangely adult postures, haircut and intense stares. As a grown-up without any kids of my own, I left the show entertained and pleasantly surprised by the kids’ focus and ability to carry out Tim Etchells’s sweetly loaded script. But that’s about all I felt.

Until this morning, when I realized two important things:
1. I have a pattern of becoming obsessed with films, books, plays, and other creative expressions that describe the tipping point between childish naiveté and often-melancholy realization of the weight of adulthood.
2. The kids in That Night Follows Day were talking to me after all. I am a guilty bystander. I am not immune to the accusations they leveled at the audience. Likewise I have been a participant in their care-taking and victories.

The sequence of dream-hauntings pushed me to a different relationship with last night’s experience. I now recognize the subtext of this performance, in the craft of Etchells’s words and Theatre Replacement’s staging. I’m significantly more bummed out today than I was post-show, but also buoyed by a new human sympathy for the pains of growing up.

- Tania