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Comment by Deborah Powell on June 24, 2009 at 12:20

Well, that certainly is integrated! Think that might scare me more than a bit of on-stage samba! :-)

Comment by john collingswood on June 23, 2009 at 20:02

the concept behind Kontakt is that each audience member has a one-to-one experience with various members of the company. audience and performers are all on stage, sitting at small tables.

Comment by Deborah Powell on June 23, 2009 at 13:33

I missed Kontakt ... how did they fully integrate the audience?

Comment by john collingswood on June 23, 2009 at 8:02

the better experience of audience participation that i've witnessed have been performances by Punchdrunk and Phillip Mackenzie's Kontakt project for Shermancymru that fully integrate the audience from beginning to end. otherwise, i think it has to be really subtle, like Gerald Tyler sitting in the second row for the aircraft sequence of Big Hands.

Comment by Deborah Powell on June 23, 2009 at 6:17

No problem disagreeing John! That just makes for a better discussion!!
Actually I feel the same about Minus 16 - liked the chairs sequence best.
I guess that's the problem when audience participation is brought into any programme - sometimes it just doesn't fit & leaves the audience cold ...
Have you ever seen any AP that really worked?

Comment by john collingswood on June 23, 2009 at 4:13

actually - i was pretty disappointed by the event, and left the theatre with an incredulous 'wtf was all that about' look.
the dancers were technically excellent, and one or two of them had enough charisma to put in pretty mature performances, for such a young company. unfortunately the choreography let them down.
offspring was so bland that even the excesses of the lighting design couldn't prevent me from falling asleep. gods and dogs was better - i liked the design, the choreography and the performance (apart from the running and sliding into position) but minus 16: good grief! what a load of one-dimensional patronising fluff. apart from the gangsters-in-chairs sequence, which had a fashionable trademark israeli choreography feel, the rest of the piece made me shudder with embarrassment.
the 'personal stories' section happened to feature recordings of the 'personal stories' of dancers from a previous incarnation of the company - no wonder the choreography in that bit was uninspiring and impersonal.
the audience participation was painful to watch, and it just went downhill from there, culminating in a human pyramid. (holland's got talent - anyone?) and a clap-along panto curtain call that went on and on, with most of the company looking like they'd much rather be somewhere quiet with a bottle of water and a stretch.
sorry to disagree with you deborah, but i was expecting more...

Comment by Deborah Powell on June 23, 2009 at 0:40

Some of us were'nt so lucky! The pro's were fanatastic!
Thought it was great to see the effort the company put into building-up to the audience participation bit too; starting with the lone dancer in front of the curtain at the interval, to the lights-up music playing, to the personal 'stories' which cumulatively made everyone feel connected to the performance and therefore much less inhibited and enable to 'have a laugh' at our expense!

Comment by Catherine Paskell on June 22, 2009 at 1:13

Hi Deborah! Yeah I went to see NDT2 and really liked it too. But then I guess I'm always going to be impressed by beautiful people with huge amounts of talent doing very difficult things with their bodies. The control and skill on display was mesmerising. Very glad I wasn't pulled into the audience participation though, never before been so relieved that I happened to be wearing a dark purple cardi over my bright pink T-shirt. It would've got me noticed - and doing the samba - on stage in no time I'm sure!