Clouds Above Berlin – Double Bill

Clouds Above Berlin is a double bill showcasing two very skilled and meticulous dancers with something to say.

The first piece was called Titled Fawn and chronicles a perpetual moving of boxes. Dancer Melanie Lane takes to the stage methodically. We watch the boxes be moved and then how the boxes move the dancer. Mid way through the piece, out bursts Lane’s strong thrusting, twisting, caving movements with a tone of craving.

The sound scape morphed from an all encompassing drone to simple sounds emanating from boxes. It was a piece that explored objects and movement so generically that your mind imagined all possible meanings. So for me to explain what I saw beyond what I’ve said is probably just to tell you how my brain works. But it made me regard how we worship objects. We have things and we move things – and sometimes they move us.

Antony Hamilton joins Melanie Lane in Black Project 1. A rumbling starts and the dim light reveals two blackened crumpled figures. They look like two fallen toy soldiers save for the piercing whites of their eyes. The twitching gesture-like movements begin. They’re synchronicity is so impressive you’d believe they were robots. There is an eerie unpredictability about their sharp movements. Just when you thought you were impressed already, their interaction with the space begins.

The blank black canvas that is the dancers and their space transforms little by little with shocking white all the while intrinsically choreographed. The most impressive transformation of the space was tape being ripped off the wall and floor- as it’s swiftly pulled away shocks of white are left behind, revealed like lightning bolts. Black Project 1 is a very meticulous exploration of shapes in visual art and dance executed with precision.