This solo show is the third part of Raimund Hoghe’s trilogy of personal reflections on the 20th Century, and deals with the 1960s mood of awakening. With bird-eyes staring expressionlessly out from within a deadpan face, long arms, long feet, a short neck and a hunch back, he steps a precise walk in a twisted body, a sophisticated pigeon of a man in a smart suit. Hoghe is renowned as one of Europe's most remarkable performance artists, and for ten years was dramaturg for Pina Bausch. His own tanztheater is a combination of Japanese ritualistic precision, performance art and German Expressionism. His presence has a formal ease, using an economy and simplicity of props within minimalist pieces: 60s pop songs are prefixed with a spoken text that begins ‘I remember…’, such as a dance with hand-held feathers whilst Cilla Black sings ‘It’s so easy... like taking candy, from a baby.’ At times I stifled laughter at the serious softness of his performance pieces. In another dance, Hoghe repeatedly puffed a handkerchief up into the air from his face.
This was an extremely long show with a repetitive format – it was as if he had chosen his desert island discs from the 60s, and improvised with a random prop. I came away with questions such as: Did one need to have a pre-knowledge of the movement language of Pina Bausch to appreciate this show? Was it the Emperor's New Clothes? Would the show have held anyone’s attention if Raimund Hoghe didn't look ‘odd’? Well, it was a remarkable performance and I came away quite baffled and exasperated as to what I'd experienced.