HYDERABAD: Eight spirited dancers gave a frightening and thought-provoking performance at the Goethe- Zentrum. The performance, an abstract piece entitled “Love, Death and The Devil”, sought to make the audience confront its fears of death, and to show them a surreal world far outside their ordinary experience.
The Dusseldorf-based choreographer, Ben Riepe, said he wished to “go beyond the boundaries of contemporary dance”, and he certainly did so.
With no discernible plot, almost no speaking lines, and no characters as such, “Love, Death and The Devil” challenged its audience to look past their notions of what dance should be and take the performance for what it was.
The play featured some disturbing images of death, dying, convulsions, murder, maniacal laughter and despair. One could feel the tension in the audience, as many spent the night on the edge of their seats. Many let their discomfort show, and some felt as though they had to leave.
As the masked dancers twirled about, pantomiming their various demonic actions, many in the audience felt confusion bordering on disgust.
“This is almost obscene”, one audience member remarked during the play, “but I can’t look away.” After the show, reactions were somewhat muted. “It was nice,” one audience member said after the show, for lack of any more suitable adjective, “I’ll have to think about it for a little while.” Another claimed the piece to be a “great success in abstract art”, something which he will remember for a long time to come.