REVIEWED: Rambert – Life is a Dream

Rambert is presenting its latest full-length production at the Lowry this week.

 

Created by award-winning choreographer Kim Brandstrup, and flawlessly interpreted by the dancers of the company, Life is a Dream takes us on a captivating journey of dream and poetry.

 

Brandstrup’s inspiration originated with a 17th-century play by Pedro Calderón de la Barca. An imprisoned Polish prince is longing for the outside world; he is freed for a day, causes chaos and destruction, and is locked up again and told it was a dream.

 

The choreographer imagines a theatre director in communist Poland working on the play. It is the end of the day. Exhausted, he is falling asleep in the rehearsal room, as the actors rehearse – maybe in reality, maybe in his dreams, the lines are starting to blur.

 

 

Like the prince, he is imprisoned: locked behind the Iron Curtain, he is dreaming of freedom. The derelict, warehouse-like rehearsal room echoes the poverty and austerity of postwar Polish theatre-makers. Through the big, towering windows, images of the outside – attractive yet daunting – fascinate the director and the actors. But mysterious shadows give way to a realistic and sad picture of soviet Poland – concrete, anonymous blocks of flats, wooden electricity pylons trembling in the wind.

 

When the walls of the room collapse (through an absolutely fantastic effect of light and shadows), the director steps into the outside world and enters the story himself. In the second half of the piece, he becomes the protagonist of the play. But as vivid as his experience seems – Liam Francis, as the Polish theatre director, treats us to passionate and energetic dancing – he cannot get hold of his dream and goes back to the safe haven of the rehearsal room.

 

 

Rambert’s dancers excel at Brandstrup’s fluid and smooth movement. Their feet are inaudible on the floor, lifts come in waves as if carried by the wind. They swirl, pause, collapse on the ground, recover. Sometimes a look is worth a hundred steps; sometimes a jump is stronger than a scream. At times tense and antagonistic, the dancing is always telling the story, communicating a feeling or an idea, never purposeless. Hannah Rudd, Juan Gil, Miguel Altunaga and Edit Domoszlai in particular deliver stunning performances.

 

Witold Lutos?awski’s music drives the story throughout. Celebrated as one of the greatest 20th-century Polish composers, most of his work was created under communist repression. Mixing Polish folk influence and modernism, he echoes the images of Polish avant-garde theatre Brandstrup had in mind when creating the characters. 

 

Like Calderón, Brandstrup explores the essentially Cartesian theme of the illusion of sensory perception. Dreams feel so real that we mistake them for reality – so what if life was a dream?

 

Rambert rarely present full-length productions, preferring shorter works. But as Life is a Dream gives us the chance to enter a fascinating universe of imagination and poetry, it is a pleasure to be able enjoy it for a whole evening. 

 

 

 

Rambert are performing Life is a Dream at the Lowry until Friday, October 12.