There are three things you can watch forever: fire, water, and other people dancing. The last one is surely proved by tanzmainz dancers in Philippe Kratz’s new piece Camera Obscura. The dancers have challenging yet clearly enjoyable material to cope with: meditatively smooth choreography and a discernible but unobvious system of dependence on each other. That kind of movement — along with well-executed action development — makes you glue your attention to the stage.
However, the cloud of philosophical meanings claimed around the performance exceeds its real content. The name of the performance mostly refers to the set design and the stated large research on body and light does not fully unfold within well-timed but evident transitions between projections, shadows, ambient light and spotlighting the dancers from the darkness. Captivating findings — like the moonlit love duet and the following electrically intense recognition of each other through powerful, shooting breakouts of light — intrigue but sadly remain undeveloped. Turns out that the piece almost literally recreates the mechanism of the camera obscura and shows a flat image. We can definitely enjoy the well-composed picture, but there is no space left for questioning.
Again on 12, 13 April;
www.staatstheater-mainz.com
