Nature Theater Of Oklahoma

(USA)

Poetics: A Ballet Brut

It’s so mundane they could do this on the bus or at the mall and no one would think they were performing.

Then Anne Gridley suddenly weaves it all into a high-speed solo, and Poetics instantly becomes the dance version of singing in the shower, an awesome and awkward tour de force that grows exponentially through to the piece’s final inevitable and surprising conclusion.

Created by Nature Theater of Oklahoma, a young company of performers with an unlimited heart and personality and virtually no formal dance training, Poetics takes the everyday gestural language of the street and weaves it over the course of a tight 65 minutes into a final full scale takeover of the entire performance space.

Building on the key concepts of Aristotle’s original treatise on theatre: imitation, harmony, rhythm, fear, pity and spectacle, the company generates an ever-increasing catalogue of movement that grows before our eyes. The show can be intimate one moment and operatic the next, as the dancers navigate their performance through various revelations of space and character.

The brilliant trick up the company’s sleeve? A titanic, thundering ode to the liberating power of artlessness.

Poetics is a dance manifesto on presence and performance for our time.

In 2008 Pavol Liska and Kelly Cooper won the Young Directors Award at the Salzburg Festival.

‘Giving away the deliriously giddy final coup de theatre would not be fair to the company… [it’s’] a feat of stagecraft that reveals the beauty in everyday movement while paying tribute to the most solitary people of all: the audience.’ The New York Times

‘Nature Theater of Oklahoma has evolved into one of New York’s most talented ensembles…their shows are smart, witty, highly physical, and eager to twist notions of theatricality.’ The Village Voice

The company is seeking 25 extras to participate in this production, no professional training or experience required.

British Première