Wales National Dance Company Rocks- Great performance at Music Academy Chennai

Singing Light by the Wales Dance Company at Music Academy

National Dance Company, Wales- Performance at Music Academy, Chennai
Nostalgia. Expression. Speed. Emotions.

Attended a great performance by Wales Dance Company tonight.  We were completely spell-bound and entralled.  There were two major performances- B/olero & Black Milk by Ohad Naharin and Singing Light by Stephen Petronio.  The two sections were complete contrast.

The first was a slow and in darkness with simple lighting.  The costumes were elaborate.  Elaborate is relative to contemporary dance.  There were a smaller number of dancers and the moves were a cross between jazz and ballet.  The music was in the background, not heard, rather just guiding the musicians.  Some of the moves resembled middle-eastern styles, possibly emphasizing the Israeli background of the choreographer.  Even the costumes had a Lebanese connection. The faces were always in the shadows and they slowly kept come in and out of the shadows.  The music was very well synchronized with the faces moving in and out of the shadows.  The distribution of the white, green and purples offered a contrasting touch.  The choreographer has founded his own movement called "gaga".

The second was extremely fast paced.  There was a lot of action and with uncoordinated rhythmic poses distributed generously across the stage.  It was striking how these uncoordinated actions suddenly came together.  The music was composed to the word of Dylan Thomas,possibly the most famous Welsh poet.  The clothes were just wrapped cloth with interesting cuts that showed the body poses clearly in the bright light.  The red leotards was a class act.  The artists casually come in and out of the main stage.  It resembled a market with true cacophony but the food chain keeps chugging along.  In this case, it resembled a rocket.

I found videos of their performance on Youtube.  Feel free to view them:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPmbtck35Ic->B/olero & Black Milk by Ohad Naharin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCZE-aeQfac->Singing Light by Stephen Petronio

Music Academy is a really nice hall.  It has been a long time since I have been there and the place has been done up quite well. The acoustic went without a hitch.