Snapshots 3 showcased three new works by three companies, each a work in progress and a conceptual teaser of more developed works to come.
LOVE, presented by Luden’s Ensemble is a piece that mixes new media conceptualizing Shakespeare’s love sonnets. Melancholic recorded music plays as a projection lands on a open white umbrella; an actor walks slowly across the stage, ever underneath an open ladder, these omens of bad luck perhaps nodding to the more disparaging side of the love experience. Shadows play with metaphor on a white linen scrim, live film projects close-up views of mouths. There’s high concept, indeed, but if the components all come together, that remains to be seen.
HAND//SHAKE, choreographed by Katie Armstrong and presented by Katie Armstrong and Lucy Ireland, explores the first movement of Bach’s Violin and Concerto in A Minor. In a playful personification of the music, the two movers begin in a handshake that leads to a full embodiment of the composition from trills to crescendos to cadences. A delightful and different way to experience classical music.
NOTHING, presented by Faux Theatre, is a duet of acoustic guitar by Dave BeMac and physical theatre by Francisca Morton that somehow effectively manages to make tangible the feelings of experiencing gripping, overwhelming, numbing depression. Using nought but gorgeous melody, movement, and a sheet of polythene, this low-tech but high-impact experience swells with the sweet, sad plucking of the guitar, culminating in the performer submerged in a cocoon of a plastic duvet. A stand-out performance relatable for all, and especially meaningful for those that struggle to put their mental health struggle into words.
These Snapshots performances are part of the Artists@Work series within the manipulate Festival that act as a platform for Scottish-based physical theatre organisations and artists to experiment and to showcase new works.
Tuesday 30 January at 6pm