Human limbs acquire a new fascination for Nehad Selaiha after watching the Tanztheater Bremen at Al-Gomhouriya Theatre On my way to see the Tanztheater Bremen double bill last week I was sure it would be splendidly choreographed and superbly staged. But rather than feel excited I had an urge to yawn. I felt I knew already what it would be like and wondered why I was going. Curiosity perhaps? Or a faint hope that may be this time it would be different? After so many years of watching dance theatre one gets the feeling that one has seen it all, that choreographers have exhausted the possible kinetic, aesthetic and expressive possibilities of the human body and that all they can do now, if they are clever, is to try and think up new ways of combining the available and by now tediously familiar store of movement, scores and phrases and play them off against varied scenic backgrounds, lighting effects and soundtracks in the hope of forging a startling image, evoking a metaphor, or creating a mood. No wonder most dance shows come dazzlingly packaged in sheets of glowing verbiage and sealed with the blessings of eminent critics or famous reviewers. At best this is intended to precondition the viewers and persuade them to channel whatever impressions they glean in a particular interpretative (or, indeed, deconstructivist) direction. At worst, it is used to mask mediocrity and pass it off as profound. In this respect the printed programme of the Bremen dance theatre's double bill in Cairo was a rare exception. It had none of the usual obfuscating, highfalutin language or dull, simplistic explanatory notes one invariably encounters in such literature. Apart from describing the company as "one of the two pillars of Dance Theatre in Germany" and recording that a certain dance critic by the name of Jochen Schmidt dubbed it the "Mecca of Dance Theatre", it contained nothing but useful factual information about the history of the company, the names of the dancers who passed through it, a short biography of its present artistic director, Swiss choreographer and dancer Urs Dietrich, and the names of the dancers and artistic crew for each of the two scheduled pieces. The first, Flut (or The Tide), a solo dance choreographed by Susanne Linke (former co-artistic director of the company from 1994 to 1996) and performed by Dietrich, was meditative in a lyrical vein and very short, lasting less than 15 minutes. Except for a big roll of blue cloth the stage was empty and softly lit throughout. The sea, with its cyclic rise and fall, is the source of inspiration here, as the title indicates, and the repetitive sequence at the beginning, in which the lone man, Dietrich, slowly unfolds the cloth, creating his own sea, little by little, in complete silence, draws on the movement vocabulary of swimming, fishing and rowing. When music invades the scene in the form of parts of Fauré's Elegy for cello and orchestra, and is frequently interrupted by pauses in which we overhear the muffled voice of an invisible conductor in the wings giving directions to his players and making them repeat the same musical passages, as in a rehearsal. The movement changes in response. Instead of the peaceful, almost hypnotic rhythmical repetitions of the initial silent sequence, it now proceeds in flow-stop-pause cycles, following the rhythms of the man's frustrating relationship with the music and expressing his bewilderment and consternation at the erratic behaviour of the maestro in the wings. Just as the music suddenly stops at the maestro's will, the man would often interrupt a figurative movement (like unfurling the cloth and waving it to make it billow then jumping and rolling into it), walk to one of the brilliantly lighted openings leading into the wings and gaze expectantly into it. Though the conductor in the wings, rehearsing his music, is never aware of the dancer on stage trying to create his sea-dance we are made to feel the conflict between them and to sympathise with the latter who looks pathetically lonely and vulnerable. As the dramatic tension builds up to the climax and finale -- the dancer's defeat as a man against the unseen tune-setter, his failure as an artist to create his own make-believe sea and dance, and his final exit (or death) -- the initial metaphor, an old one, of "the tides of life", or of the sea as representing both life and death, merges with another, equally old -- that of "the world as a stage and we're all players on it". The climax is marked by the sudden and startling disappearance of the blue cloth into the wings, right in front of the dancer's incredulous eyes, as if deftly snatched by an invisible hand. In the silence, he stands completely still for a minute, as if dazed, helplessly gazing at the place where it disappeared, then walks off, leaving us with the silent, empty stage for a while before the lights begin to fade gradually to blackout. Gazing at the empty stage, wondering if the dancer will reappear and slowly realising, no, this is the end, the irony of using Fauré's Elegy suddenly hit me; all along it was being rehearsed by the invisible orchestra in preparation for the artist's death and the poor man was trying to live by it and dance to it. More than an aching meditation on life and death, Flut is also about the tragic fate of the artist killed by the pursuit of his/her art, about creativity in relation to the authority of artistic tradition, and about human freedom when it clashes with authoritarian religious or political institutions. True, it has not come up with anything novel movement-wise, that the ideas it projects are too vague and general and have been long in circulation in dance circles, and the use of a sheet of cloth to simulate water is positively hackneyed, nevertheless it had intensity, concentration and emotional power and the choreography was clear, sharp, carefully thought-out and performed with ethereal grace by Urs Dietrich. The second piece, Every Body, choreographed by Dietrich this time and performed by nine superb dancers, was more complex, ambitious and innovative. For me, it seemed to define dance theatre as I understand and like it -- as an exploration and celebration of the physicality of life in its myriad shapes, moods and rhythms. No figurative use of the body here, no striving after metaphors; the body is not used as a vehicle for mystical musings, philosophical reflection, existential protest, ritualistic reenacting of past experiences or social and/or political satire. It is there to be carefully discovered and lovingly displayed in all its parts and states of being. Hence the title Every Body, and not Everybody. Christoph Becker's austere stage and lighting design (black on all sides and dimly lit except for a bright spotlight in one or two scenes) and Andreas Moje's equally ascetic but weirdly funny costumes (also uniformly black, except for two scenes), are central to the choreographic plan and visual impact of this intensely absorbing piece. Using black against black was a calculated risk and it paid. In their black costumes, the covered parts of the dancers' bodies seemed to melt into the dark background and surrounding shadows while the light picked up the bare parts -- legs, feet, arms, hands, necks, shoulders or faces -- or was reflected back from the glossy surface of some material, like leather, forming intense pools of light. This allowed Dietrich to compose some startling variations on the shape of the human body: a woman at the far back seemed like a trunkless face and two arms, floating in the dark; another kept moving back until she was nothing but two tiny dots of light reflected from her shoulders; a man in black with bare legs became a three-legged dancing creature when another dancer, all in black except for one leg, stood behind him, shoving the bare leg between his thighs, then flinging it sideways from his hips. Other grotesque compositions included a woman with a head, one leg and one arm; a man with a head, two legs and no torso or arms; a man with three arms, two of them joined at the elbow; two lovers who conducted their flirtation and fighting solely with their feet and legs; three geisha-style dancing girls who seemed to have wheels instead of legs under their quilted bell-shaped dresses the way they glided round and round; shapeless, slimy-looking bodies, creeping and slithering on the floor like insects and others crawling on hands and feet and scurrying away in fear; an abnormally tall and thin man, wearing high platform shoes and walking on tiptoe with air-inflated cushions round his neck and another, equally tall but black, wearing a silver, shoulderless evening dress which looked as if it was empty, or inhabited by a shadow and moving by itself, as the man receded in the background. These grotesque images of the human body are set off against a range of relatively normal ones: a woman in a swimsuit admiring herself and caressing her body; another fighting desperately to control her rebellious limbs and keep them in the socially acknowledged proper place; a third in a position of prayer; a group of men and women moving rigidly in a diagonal line, their heads tilted sideways, and so forth. The interplay of white and black, light and darkness is paralleled in the soundtrack which accompanies the performance by the alternation of sweet instrumental music with eerie atmospheric sound effects and both reflect the two sets of choreographic dynamics in the piece: the normal on the one hand and the odd or grotesque on the other. Without the magnificent Bremen dancers, however, Every Body might not have come across so faultlessly or made the same impact. They created a vibrant, dynamic ensemble which thrilled the audience, including those who confessed that they could not make head or tail of it.
