Review: Softandhard

SOFTANDHARD (Lachky), Helsinki Dance Company 2008

There are many consecutive words and sentence structures that can be used to describe and analyze a dance performance. But when you see a dance performance that the words seem misleading and empty to describe, we are to some extent close to the most basic essence of dance. When bodily expression is so complementary, it feels weak to explain and open it up verbally.

This is what happened to me when I saw Helsinki Dance Company’s new production Softandhard, choreographed by Anton Lachky.

After seeing Softandhard, I can identify with the world of experience of a bench athlete. When something is so attention-grabbing, exciting, and engaging, it’s hard to stay in your seat. Your own head is spinning as the dancers spin on the floor, you can’t lean on the back of the bench in the auditorium, and your gaze moves from right to left, and again from left to right. The audience was tied to the performance right from the start. The music began and the dancers were already visible, but the viewer was given time to be excited, oriented, wait and reflect on their expectations.

In the work, Lachky played with the basic structures of composition, and made effective use of timing, among other things. As mentioned above, the beginning of the work was carefully thought out in terms of timing. Timing was also used as a tool for the dancers’ cooperation. They were looking for a common start, listened to each other’s readiness to continue, and found a common moment to stop the movement. Lachky had succeeded in his intention of combining the possibility of sprawl and freedom with a well-thought-out compositional structure. The composition allowed for an intact whole, and smooth transitions from one scene to another and from solo to duo, but the freedom of the dancers to focus solely on listening to each other and acting only in the moment gave the work room to breathe. As at the beginning, the ending was structured in such a way that the viewer could calmly slip away from the atmosphere of the performance, and move on to process what they saw and the fulfillment of expectations.

If you were asked about your views on the essence of dance and your personal understanding of dance, it would be close to what you saw in Softandhard. Lachky has had a knack for highlighting what makes dance unique and the dancer special. In principle, dance works with the help of simple gravity, laws of motion, directions and velocity variations, but it is possible to create impressive aesthetic-emotional experiences. The uniqueness of dancers is that they are able to accomplish all of the above, and are able to express everything with their own bodies, with their body language. In embodying ideas, Inka Tiitinen was absolutely captivating in her mimicry-like solo scene. It was also fascinating that Softandhard’s choreography was so physical. I think it is somehow appreciative of dance and the talents of dancers. The choreography doesn’t have to be full of great tricks and physical feats, but why not show what the dancers can do? Lachky had challenged the dancers to experiment with movement quality, movement, energy and endurance.

I don’t feel like verbalizing Softandhard any more, so as not to flatten the experience that has been created with non-verbal, movement expression and acquired through the kinesthetic sense.