Reviews DancePerformance Published 18 October 2013

Show of Hands

Platform Theatre ⋄ 11 & 19 October 2013

Choreographing autobiography.

Lewis Church

Part of Dance Umbrella 2013, Freddie Opoku-Addaie’s Show of Hands is presented here at UAL’s Platform Theatre complex, with further performances at Stratford Circus later in the festival. A young British choreographer (one of the few in the program), a former Place Prize finalist and collaborating with Graeme Miller as Director, Opoku-Addaie frames the piece in the context of wider autobiography, with his experiences provoking questions of political, cultural and social concerns. The performance is built on highly individual references and experiences, but attempts to render them in such a manner that it reflects back on the viewer’s own position.

Looming flat wooden hands make up the set, props and performance material for this exploration of identity and experience. Misshapen and angular, the hands are the constant fact of the piece, the ever present, heavy and unavoidable obstacle for the performer. Moving in and amongst them, repositioning them along the floor or allowing his head to be cradled, they are a striking component. Throughout the piece, in tracksuit and trainers, the performer switches between modes of expression – movement, text and vocal sounds – and constructs new interactions with the sculpted objects of the hands. No one form is privileged over the other, and the performance has a fluid attitude to genre. It’s not fully dance, not fully dance-theatre. This slippage and variety is striking, but it brings with it difficulties that Opoku-Addaie has not fully managed to overcome. The development of the most interesting movement feels incomplete, with every bass vibration jerk and shiver undone by its brevity and underdeveloped as a motif. The spoken sections fail to connect, and the lightness of the delivery disarms any potential for engagement. In his subjectivity, his individuality and likeable performance demeanour, Opoku-Addaie struggles to connect the humour and seriousness that are the twin poles of the piece.

Narrative sections, stories clearly drawn from life, frequently fail to find an emotional mark, offering too little to be interesting and too much to be abstract. In certain cases the design comes to the rescue, emphasising the loneliness of a London park or an ambiguous teenage conversation, and adding gravitas to the otherwise banal lighting or sound. These instances, however, are perhaps a disservice to the clearly skilled performer, with the mechanic aspects of a dance studio overtaking the work on stage. In a similar manner the hands, which range from baby arm to wide scoop, are never fully explained or examined. They appear largely interchangeable, when the differences and individual character of each of the 20 or so objects is apparent. One is tiny, one strong, some clearly powerful while others appear limp. In several of the many formations that they take throughout the piece, the only multiple, two hands gripping each other, is prominent but never referred to. Whilst these hands are constantly in use, they are underused. At no point do they appear as more than dressing, as invested objects that further the piece. The performance feels experimental, a working draft rather, that has not yet fully been completed. The curious mix of speech, the rearrangement of objects and the sections of physical movement never cohere into anything affective, anything more than an objectively interesting set of performative choices.

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Show of Hands Show Info


Directed by Graeme Miller

Choreography by Freddie Opoku-Addaie

Link http://danceumbrella.co.uk/show-of-hands-3

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