Review: (re)use

(re)use seals the contemporary dance trilogy in style

Choreographer Kenneth Kvarnström’s farewell work (re)use shakes up the viewing experience.

“What was it? asks a spectator heading towards the edge of the hall in front of me, as he is about to trip over something lying on the ground.
“It’s a leg! commented his friend.

Really, it’s a leg. And even a goat’s leg. A stuffed horned head sits in the corner of Studio Elsa, twisted into a strange position. That is the beginning of the wonder that is on offer for the next hour and a half.

Kenneth Kvarnström Helsinki Dance Company (re)use seals the trilogy in style with a focus on the viewer’s experience. Not only does the audience wander around the space for the first twenty minutes, but the seats are changed a couple of times during the performance. In this way, Kvarnström makes the viewer choose from which angle and how close they follow the dance piece.

The end result is amazingly natural and intimate in a completely different way than what follows from traditional sitting in the stands. Drops of sweat run down the dancers’ foreheads as they change clothes effortlessly between scenes among the audience. Sometimes limits are also set for the audience’s viewing experience when the space is divided in half in the middle. What happens on the other side of the veil remains a mystery.

As the name suggests, (re)use recycles the movement material of Kvarnström’s earlier works for as many as twenty years. The tempo variations are mastered this time as well: the cheerful fairytale character scene forced inside a glass cube lightens the heavier parts, and the sweatpants paired with pompous lace collars and baroque dresses underline the dance’s ability to combine the incompatible.

The carnivalesque sections pave the way for a wild final scene, where knives swing and animalistic instincts take the dancers in their fur pants. The atmosphere is nightmarish. (Re)use leaves behind a darker atmosphere than the previous installments, but powerful nonetheless.

All in all, (re)use rivets the trilogy that was created together with the YOUMAKEME and (play) parts handsomely together.

It will be Kvarnström’s last work with Helsinki Dance Company, as the choreographer will head towards new challenges at the end of the spring.