Review: Apospasmata

PLAY OF BEAUTIFUL CRUELTIES


The City Theatre’s dance performance Apospasmata depicts a violent metropolis.

It all starts with the rumble of the tracks and the squeaks of twisting metal. We are in a huge railway yard or somewhere under intersecting metro lines.
The slowly brightening lights bring out the nine dancers waiting on stage in tense poses. Everyone is dressed in black tights. The face is covered. The lights reduce Studio Elsa’s stage to almost two dimensions. The figures appear to be standing on a narrow platform.

The beginning of Apospasmata by Greek-born choreographer Andonis Foniadakis takes the viewer straight to its core, to a restless metropolis. There, the people are a nameless mass, the pace of life is too fast, and the soundscape is percussive noise.

Apospasmata is a choreography commissioned by Foniadakis, 35, for the City Theatre’s dance group. Its name means parts or excerpts. The work is divided into three parts, which are united by violent urbanism and the beating music of the Frenchman Julien Tarride .

In the world of Apospasmata, relationships are always mixed with power, eroticism is the play of beautiful cruelty, and love tears the skin to blood ─ literally. Life in the metropolis is brutal, but Foniadakis can’t help but admire it.

The dancers of the City Theatre cope well with physical and demanding choreographies. In most scenes, they appear only as flesh and only towards the end as individuals.
The lights, set design and music fascinatingly create different spaces on the stage, from a dark alley to a bright nightclub.
Foniadakis has said that he was able to try things in Helsinki that could not have been done elsewhere. Apospasmata is a turbocharged depiction of life, power and violence in a city of millions: interesting, gripping, but perhaps even too hectic for the northern mentality.