By Hildy Harland
On Thursday I once more returned to Dance City Theatre to get my live dance fix and had been looking forward to this particular piece for a while . I didn’t really have any expectations based on any kind of fact; anyone who knows me will know I often run completely from my own imagination when the facts are lacking. And this was one of those instances, I heard that the piece had a lot of African influence (I knew that Bawren grew up in Zimbabwe) so I immediately heard cool percussion in my head and generated an image of deep earthy dance. However this was not quite what I got. The piece had a huge balletic tone to it although I did get my fix of more traditional African style movement at times.
“Bawren Tavaziva’s new work is a bold and universal message about human fragility within our changing world. Beautiful, haunting and provocative, Izindava unearths raw emotions that are unsettling and unforgettable. Bawren has taken us on an extraordinary journey with Izindava. Politics, trauma, persecution and death are not easy subjects for making dance, yet he has conveyed so much that feels universal and personal”.
Throughout the piece the movement was strong, precise and balletic in style with a huge amount of clean lines and angles. The piece is also hugely athletic, not only fast paced and full of energy but relentless and fast paced throughout. What really struck me about the feeling of the whole show was the amount of emotion and personal touches from the dancers themselves, which made the piece incredibly watchable and engrossing.
The lighting of the piece was fantastic. As there wasn’t an actual set, the use of light and dark, shadows and silhouettes essentially became the set! The fantastic use of back lighting creating beautiful silhouettes of the dancers was a beautiful way to portray some of the dark issues and emotions the piece addressed. There were also some pretty interesting costumes/props within the show, there were a couple of long tentacle-like arm attachments which gave the opportunity for a great contact duet. There were also a couple of other different body attachments and limbs. To me they seemed like a visual expression of the ugliness of the topics covered by the show.
As a whole Izindava is a provocative and visually stunning piece of dance theatre, not only does it have some really strong themes but it is full to brimming with wonderful technique and a really strong and emotionally invested company of dancers.
Dance Culture North East 