Teatr Novogo Fronta / Pro Progressione / Tara Arts: Home:scape

Teatr Novogo Fronta / Pro Progressione / Tara Arts: Home:scape

Teatr Novogo Fronta / Pro Progressione / Tara Arts: Home:scape

Opening during the Olympic Games, Home:scape, a collaboration between the Czech-based ensemble Teatr Novogo Fronta and one of the UK’s most quietly adventurous venues, appears to counter that global festival of homogenising cultural activity (sport) by bringing together diverse and plural reflections on the nature of home and transitions. Drawing from a wide range of interviews conducted throughout Europe, this international ensemble seek to connect us to the variety of elements that make us feel at home or not. In translating this into performance they generate a kaleidoscope of images and actions of people permanently in transition. These figures begin and end queueing as if for an immigration desk, this central image the touchstone to which they return at various points and in various formats. In between these they only fleetingly settle in moments that attempt to embody the joy of belonging and the dislocation of not, before being catapulted into another state.

There is unsurprisingly a hard edge to the work, a certain rough brutal physicality reinforced by the company’s avowed allegiance to the idea of the self-sacrifice of the performer, and whilst the performers set about the work with vigour, the intended revelations don’t materialise and instead it falls into the trap common with this mode of physically-based performance of becoming a visual feast of moments but ultimately an insular experience for the performers alone.

One of the main reasons this piece is difficult to engage with is the repeated pre-emptive breaking of established actions and moods, such that any moment rarely establishes itself firmly enough before it is cast aside and another takes its place. There are exceptions – a man tenderly asleep  in his suitcase, a suspended foetal-positioned figure surrounded by the earthbound, and a leaping line of dancers against which one man rhythmically pounds the earth with his feet. Overall though, the aggressive montage does little to support the meaning of, or an emotional connection to, the work. Whilst there are some striking images at points, including a Géricault-esque line of figures swallowed by darkness, the majority of the material feels under-developed and opaque.

This entry was posted in Reviews and tagged , , on by .
Avatar

About Thomas JM Wilson

Thomas JM Wilson has been writing for Total Theatre since 2001. His own performance work lies at the borders of dance and theatre, with a particular interest in solo performance. He is an Associate Artist of Gandini Juggling, working as Archivist and Publications Author. He also currently teaches on Rose Bruford's BA European Theatre Arts, and is a co-editor of the Training Grounds section of the journal Theatre, Dance and Performance Training.