Impressive LARBI – TheaterParadijs review

27 March
by Peter Rombouts

How fortunate the Netherlands is that Introdans has many ballets by the Flemish-Moroccan choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui in its repertoire. Larbi’s dance language is a fusion of cultures in harmony with nature, where both the earthly and the spiritual are tangibly present. In Larbi, we see no fewer than three of his ballets, a true ode to resilience.

The first ballet, Fall, was created in 2015. A ballet for 27 dancers who dive across the stage like dolphins or show their flying skills like flocks of starlings. This creates beautiful moments, but it also demands a lot from the complex group choreographies, which are still often too messy. The stage is surrounded by sheets of white fabric, flowing like waves and expressing resilience, in which the dancers appear in all kinds of forms that are grounded and powerful. The connection between humans and nature is truly fascinatingly captured in movement. I would like to see this again once the ballet has fully settled in.

The second ballet, Residence, is a world premiere. In collaboration with two Australian dancers, Marc Brew and Nelson Parrish Earl, Larbi shows what is possible rather than what is impossible. Marc Brew was partially paralysed after a car accident at the age of twenty, but did not allow this to take away his career as a dancer. We see here two individuals who find each other: one has lost everything, while the other has ended up in a wheelchair.

Together they explore their possibilities, and with their determination they build a new “home” where the foundation is laid to continue living. Deeply moving both in movement and in its depiction of what is possible. As human beings, we are nowadays so often emotionally triggered by all the war images we see on phones, computers and television, where children and adults have to go on living without arms and legs. Here, in such an intensely beautiful and gentle way, it is shown how to continue living with hope for the future. Vulnerability becomes strength here. Visually, it is a beautiful stage image, with set design by Pepijn Van Looy and lighting design by Pascal Schutijser.

The final ballet, In Memoriam, is twenty years old and still stands strong. This ballet is one of the most beautiful ballets ever created. The 26 dancers show a flow of movement about what has been and what arises from it. A spiritual search of the soul. Connection, so rarely beautifully captured in duets, the meditative spinning of dervishes, a solo, and at the end a group dance that connects heaven and earth. Exquisitely performed by the dancers of Introdans.