IT ALL started so beautifully, the wide space of Tramway One covered in porcelain objets d'art; some hanging by a string, others placed strategically across the stage.
The pure white pottery had us captivated long before the performers came into
view – in some ways, it might have been better if it had stayed that way.
The Porcelain Project started life as an installation, created by choreographer Grace Ellen Barkey and artist Lot Lemm.
So pleased was Barkey with the result that she decided to build a dance around it – to explore mad kings and poetry, music and failed love, all wrapped up in hundreds of pieces of precious porcelain.
Regardless of her intentions, what Barkey has created is a visually engaging but utterly bonkers piece of dance theatre – a theatrical experience that leaves you baffled but, for the most part, entertained.
Belgium's Needcompany are clearly a talented bunch. The six performers, four men and two women, used their strong technique to deliver the odd sequence of straightforward choreography. More prevalent, though, were laboured interactions where dancers clung to each other in displays of vulnerability or dragged themselves in anguished torment along the floor.
Much like Lemm's hand-made porcelain, the fantastical hooped skirts and colourful crown-like hats played a key role in our enjoyment, while the fragile nature of the set came with a delicious danger attached, and a perverse desire for the odd breakage.
After 80 minutes, however, bafflement can lose its charm and head towards alienation. And by the final scene – an orgiastic spree of porcelain phalluses and sweaty thrusting – the need for it all to come to an end was palpable.
The full article contains 282 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
