The rare experience of watching two choreographers in one show is one of wonder and intensity. The Scottish Ballet’s production ‘Twice-Born’ brings together the UK premiere of Cayetano Soto’s ‘Schachmatt’ (Checkmate), and the World Premiere of Dickson Mbi’s ‘Twice-Born’ into one evening of intellectual and emotional stimulation. Whilst Soto’s piece is sharp, sexual and political, drawing influences from Bob Fosse and Jazz style, Mbi taps into his experience of street, and, inspired by the company’s classical training, results in a piece that is nothing short of breathtaking. Schachmatt makes you think, Twice-Born makes you feel, and together they question not just what contemporary dance truly is, but who the minds and bodies are behind it.
‘Schachmatt’ launches the audience into a simultaneously rigid yet surreal world, through curved spines and flicked wrists, Soto’s Spanish heritage and his German cultural influence play out in each member of the company’s precise execution. With costumes that evoke a semi-socialist, semi-fascist state of the 20th century, small moments of rebellion burst onto the stage in the duets, as the sexual nature that is an essential component of jazz, manifests itself in a strange taboo form. While this at first resulted in laughs from the audience, soon, as Artistic Director Christopher Hampson notes, ‘the precision, the clarity, the technicality [and] the architecture’ of these moments had one contemplating the resistant, if not revolutionary, role sexuality has to play in society.
While Soto states that his work ‘Schachmatt’ addresses the feeling of ‘head versus heart’, there is no denying your head is more readily employed to figure out his vividly beautiful yet infinitely complex ‘checkmate’. This could not be more starkly contrasted with the second piece, ‘Twice-Born’, which, from the score to each soloist, is imbued with emotion, spirit and grandeur. This is nowhere more so than in the performances of principle Marge Hendrick and first artist Rishan Benjamin, who do justice to the piece’s celebration of matriarchy with their subtle dominance and magnetism of movement on stage. They both carry each role with conviction to a poignant degree, with moments of stillness and vulnerability that moved me, and I’m sure many audience members, to tears.
Mbi’s masterful choreography evokes a sense of community in an organic and tangible manner, perhaps commenting on something lost in today’s world, but it is his score that leaves the audience breathless. His debut solo composition had fluid and confident transitions between orchestral, a capellic and techno music that were astounding, not only adding to the weight and gravitas of each moment, but truly knitting them and the community depicted together; as central to the tribe as the mountain they have deified.
Overall, these two pieces on the surface might seem at odds, but throughout the production they question the cultural, political and personal influences that contribute to the ever changing entity of contemporary dance. Whether it is through the mind-boggling maze of a checkmate or heart-strung story of a matriarchal tribe, ‘Twice-Born’ will leave you, like Soto, questioning whether ‘to follow one’s head or one’s heart’.
Image ‘twiceborn23_2426x1365_FTE’ provided by Capital Theatres via Press Release.