Salamanda Tandem, A House is My Reflection

Review in Issue 7-4 | Winter 1995

Watching A House is My Reflection was rather like walking around a spacious white gallery looking at an exhibition or installation; everyone very quiet, contemplating the work in front of them. The difference with this piece of work was that it moved and the viewer stayed still.

A House is My Reflection combined Butoh, dance, vocal sounds, candle and laser-created light. The dancers, Isabel Jones and Naomi Mutoh, were dressed very simply and lit purely by candles, either attached to their bodies or carried on large metal sculptures.

The voices of the dancers and that of the singer, Vivian Ellis, resounded throughout the space.

The performers constantly reacted to and against each other; for instance, the light created by sculptor Jo Fairfax created the impetus for a particular movement pathway across the stage which, in turn, evoked a particular vocal sound.

Put together, all of these elements created a sense of beauty and simplicity, transforming moments of stillness into silhouetted movement, and silence into rhythmical, hypnotic chanting reminiscent of Gregorian plain song.

In exploring the visual relationship between the three basic elements of sound, movement and light in their purest form, the artists created a piece which looked uncomplicated and uncluttered, and yet at the same time relied on an intimate relationship between all the different forms whereby if one were taken away the piece would not have worked.

Presenting Artists
Presenting Festival
Site

Bonnington Gallery

Date Seen
  1. May 1995

This article in the magazine

Issue 7-4
p. 24