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Press, Gate / Pina Bausch

I think Pina Bausch said something a long the lines of

I’m not interested in how people move, I’m interested in what moves people.
I was lucky enough to see Cafe Müller / Rite of Spring and Pierre Rigal’s Press, at the Gate, on consecutive nights last week.

The Bausch was incredible and did not seem 30 years old at all. Watching the performances so close together, I could almost draw a wiggly line to come from Bausch to Rigal probably via Wim Vandekeybus.

I’m incredibly fond of the Gate for many reasons and so a useless reviewer of work there but Lyn Gardner and  Andrew Haydon have both described Rigal’s work with high praise.

What I liked and I link between both the Bausch and the Rigal is that the story seems to be on the edge of your mind. You can’t complete the narrative in any straightforward way, some of the dance and physicality and atmosphere has to complete it for you. And so, the pieces become both highly personal as the work only makes sense in your head and will be pretty different in another’s I suspect but somehow quite deep and universal as everyone grasps the themes: alienation, love, patterns of history, stress, confinement, battling machines, life in you head — that apply to the Rigal and Bausch in no particular order.

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  • About me

    I'm a playwright and investment analyst. I have a broad range of interests: food, gardening, innovation & intellectual property, sustainability, architecture & design, writing and the arts. I sit on the board of Talawa Theatre Company and advise a CIS investment trust on socially responsible investments.

  • Recent Work

    Recent plays include, for theatre: Nakamitsu, Yellow Gentlemen, Lost in Peru, Lemon Love. For radio: Places in Between (R4), Patent Breaking Life Saving (WS).

  • Nakamitsu

  • Yellow Gentlemen