A Not Very Subtle Representation of Resilience through Dance + Cheap Lecture

Brushing your teeth with the wrong hand

In 1988, English dancer-choreographer Jonathan Burrows met Italian musician-composer Matteo Fargion. Since then, they have created and performed together a number of exceptionally witty and intelligent duets. The trilogy Both Sitting Duet, The Quiet Dance and Speaking Dance was presented several times at the Kaaitheater. Burrows and Fargion are a cheerful and humorous duo on stage: they execute seemingly simple movements with childlike glee, sometimes accompanied by sounds. The unexpected changes in the sequence and rhythm of these movements give rise to a fascinating musical virtuosity that, however, never takes itself too seriously. Mistakes or near-mistakes are in the first place cause for much merriment, on the part of performers as well as spectators.

What Burrows and Fargion realise together on stage evidences intelligence, alertness, an attentive feeling for the other. Their productions generate strong feelings of freedom and intense joy among the audience. Burrows once said that the dance that he was able to discover and develop with musician Fargion is something like ‘brushing your teeth with the wrong hand’.

Burrows and Fargion return with an evening of two new pieces, beginning with Cheap Lecture which opened earlier this year in Maasmechelen and continuing with an as yet untitled work to be performed alongside it in a double-bill. As the title indicates, one of the points of departure of this first part is a text: words, which are not only used for their significance, but also for their sound, their rhythm, their materiality.

The ingenious and intriguing Stop Quartet (1996) by Burrows could be seen last season at the Kaaitheater.