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Lamondance celebrates VIVA as Davi Rodrigues, artistic director, explained to the audience in his opening remarks. Viva, “to live” is the theme that runs through the pieces presented in the Company’s latest program. It is an ambitious program, filled with passion, energy, emotion and drive.

To live, as Rodrigues explains is to experience the horror of 9/11 as Garden of Lights, the first offering on the program, highlights. To live is to experience the curiosity of a child that the playful piece, Why? explores. To live is to need the connectivity of interaction with others, as A Dominant Wavelength examines in bright red costume. Nostalgia, love, rejection and knowing yourself are all part of the life we live. The choreographers who contributed to VIVA were inspired by moments that resonated in their own life experience.

The evening flowed seamlessly from one piece to the next as Rodrigues introduced each piece using the metaphor of a “door” through which one could understand the theme being presented. Lights were kept dim throughout the first and second act giving the impression of watching a play rather than attending a dance recital.
The choreography is demanding and in many pieces the pace is fast. The Warm Up required precise timing and exacting limb movement to avoid collision! It was a “sitting on the edge of the seat” experience.

The final piece of the evening entitled VIVA embodied the art of dance crossing the threshold into theatre. Using props and to the music of Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, The Beatles, The Green Car Motel, Yma Sumac and Osvaldo Queiroz VIVA inspired by the Leonard Cohen quote, “There is a crack in everything, that is how the light gets in” ended the evening on a note of hope with colour and light filling the stage.

A company to keep an eye on offering thought provoking dance.

© 2019 Nancie Ottem