Aachener
Zeitung

Clever, funny, sexy and garnished with hard rock

Bowen McCauley Dance
Schritt_Macher Festival
Ludwig Forum
Aachen, Germany
Wednesday, March 22, 2006

by Anja Wassong

"Please take cotton for your ears; it will be very loud", said the friendly voice at the entrance to the Ludwig Forum and many a visitor stopped short for wonder. After all, at this third PaceMaker offering you probably expected visual impact but not a loud rock concert. However, when it comes to the Aachen dance festival you should always be prepared for surprises.

There was, as announced, the American company Bowen McCauley Dance making its European debut in Aachen. But then program-director Rick Takvorian said he was overjoyed because despite it being "especially difficult to get these many artists together" he had succeeded. There was, in addition to the women and men who dance for choreographer Lucy Bowen McCauley, an entire live band - the musicians of Tone.

Wild Originality ...

This round of four clever dance pieces that couldn't have been more different from each other began with "Amygdala".  That title refers to the part of the brain that gives rise to emotions, especially fear. Seven protagonists shrouded in a sort of prehistoric repitilian sheath with a horned cap, exhibited their primitive and wild origins by displaying force, aggression and fear but also the sex drive and lustful wooing. These emotions were made manifest with very expressive dance - one could almost touch these feelings.

With the second piece, "Tus ojos claros ... Santa Lucia" there was a return to something more optically restful. Bowen McCauley herself ventured  this delicately melancholic and sad dance together with Matthew Linzer, Robert Sidney and two wooden benches that served as prison, pillory and also treadmill. It was an apt interpretation of the legend of St. Lucia, who was martyred in Sicily in the year 304 AD during the Italian persecutions of Christians.

A World Premiere ...

Part three of the program was humorous - the world premiere of the work "Hannah, you there?". This is about the Berlin artist Hannah Hoech (1889 - 1978), an homage abducted into the Dadaism of the 1920s. The dancer Charles Java, dressed in a moustache, monocle and highbutton bathing suit, has to deal with two love interests, Kristin Brown and Alison Crosby, who turn his head.

And then it became really loud. With six e-guitars and two percussion-generators Tone let loose its composition for "Telemetry".  So did the dancers, in their hot black Latex outfits, let loose. This was a danced s&m game, which had as its climax the ecstatic solo of guest artist Elisa Clark. Definitely worth seeing and hearing!