Clout Performance Company, Passion

Review in Issue 11-4 | Winter 1999

True to the spirit of the Jeanette Winterson novel that was its inspiration, Clout's new dance-theatre production is a story of female hope, desire, restraint and passion. The company explore similar themes in their street theatre piece, The Wrong Tackle; but in Passion they abandon the spoken narrative to present a production in which – to borrow a phrase from Winterson – the story is written on the body. It is there in the coy smiles and tender touches of the performers as they support and topple over each other in the opening scene, contrasting sharply with the arduous crashing and slapping of bodies that hit the floor relentlessly later in the piece. The eternal triangle of submission, domination and resistance is repeated throughout whilst a tilted mirror, strategically placed at the rear of the stage, challenges the audience to confront their own voyeurism.

Choreographer Barley McKay Green, like Martha Graham and Étienne Decroux before her, works with the percussive possibilities of the human body, using impact and repetition to create movement patterns that can be heard and felt as well as seen. Even without the use of words, this is far from being a silent piece of movement theatre, but is instead a medley of sound and action driven by the passion and breath of the body in action, augmented by a sumptuous soundscore written by Juliet Russell.

Passion is a treat for the senses; a hedonistic mix and match of glittering bodies and glorious sounds washed over with warm lights.

Presenting Artists
Presenting Venue
Date Seen
  1. Oct 1999

This article in the magazine

Issue 11-4
p. 23