Touch Wood and Animal Lost

2/09/2011

If you are looking for an insightfully creative evening that will make you question your very own values, then head to The Place this September for Summer House; a festival that features Touch Wood – a programme of works in progress – and The Place’s International performance season which features acclaimed productions from around the world.
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Following Touch Wood in the studios, the main theatre hosted The Place’s International performances season, presenting Yossi Berg and Oded Graf Dance Theatre’s Animal Lost.  The performance displayed another focus on identity, but a truly refreshing one. The work raised questions regarding cultural and social differences, the universality of repression and sexuality, and the needs of an individual. Animal Lost brought many hidden thoughts to the surface, consciously – and ironically – dealing with an individual’s ability to redefine the self and shifting between illusions and reality. The dark humour evoked strong messages of alternate identities of what we choose to reveal to others. This struck me as an extremely honest and thought-provoking concept, which is perhaps why it appealed so much.
A strong movement vocabulary complimented both the idea and the dancers, in many a fluid transition from ensemble work, to trios, to duets and solos; constantly shifting between a fantasy emulated by horrific animal masks and the performers’ own identity. The work was full of vigour and force, at times provocative and at others poignant. This simply justifies the company’s successful reputation, having performed throughout the world. Finally Londoners have been luckily enough to experience the successful work too.