IN BETWEEN
EN-KNAP Dance Company
Mojca Kumerdej
Choreography: Lenka Flory and Simone Sandroni
Production: EN-KNAP Dance Company
Premiere: 26th November 2007 at Stara elektrarna
In Between is a performance given by a permanent professional dance group EKG (En-Knap Group) which was created by Iztok Kovac half a year ago. The first public performance of the group with a title Celebration took place in September 2007. The choreographers of In Between are Lenka Flory from Czech republic and Simone Sandroni from Italy. They share at least two things in common: they both cooperated with a group Ultima Vez from Wim Vandekeybus 15 years ago and in 1997 they established an international dance company Deja Donne in Prague which has been settled in Perugia since last year.
In between is a place between the Earth, which is the title of the first part created by Lenka Flory, and The Sky, the second part created by Simone Sandroni. It is a place between real life and longing, between disturbing human characters which can turn into unbearable evil out of nothing, and between lonely search for happiness and the possibility of living in a couple and in a community. Both half an hour lasting segments of the performance, and especially the first one, are carefully structured and include interesting choreographic details. The first part, the Earth, is oriented towards various combinations of relations towards common dynamics between the members of the group, towards different variations of intimate relationship and towards other tandem-like forms. The choreography is neither mimetic neither natural. It reveals behaviour models in which prevails the aspiration for domination, though in divergent situations.
The stage set which is limited by reflector lights on the right is based on the principle of expanding and contracting and at the same time embodies the inner human rhythm of going through diametric emotional phases, from competitiveness, modesty, arrogance, jealousy to seduction etc. Between both parts the stage grows dark and the settings are changed. The stage set of the second part is rather loose and dispersed. The prevailing movements are circular, more air-fluid. At the same time the relations between the dancers become more abstract. In between is therefore the crossing of two perspectives between the existing and the desired, between public and intimate, between being down to earth and simultaneously floating in the sky.
In Celebration each of the five young dancers proved their individual talents. However, in this performance they succeeded as a group which performed as one and in which they were dynamically interacting. The credits for the success go also to the choreographers who put forward the dancers’ most distinctive characteristics:
impulsive speed of a Turkish dancer Ilkem Ulugün, graceful fluidity of Ana Stefanec from Slovenia, humour of Luke Dunne from Great Britain, a waste performing diapason of a Slovak dancer Tomaš Nepšinský and extraordinary stage concentration and presence of Katja Legin from Slovenia. The impression created by excellent interpretation, choreography and superb abstract music by Raffaela Petrucci, was disturbed by the incomprehensible costumes made by Lavinia Cascone, which did not reflect neither the choreography bases neither the dancing. In spite of that, the performance In between and its dancers managed to thoroughly engross the audience.
