People often find hospitals to be liminal spaces of uncertainty, which we do everything in our power to forget. As Jasmin Vardimon, director and choreographer of the production, suggests, our experience of hospital services begins before we enter through its door – it begins with something going wrong, the thing you hope will be the last to go wrong that day. Lullaby invites the audience to superimpose their memories on the scenes, moving from the familiar A&E waiting area through to the experiences of healthcare workers themselves. Vardimon demonstrates her ability to enliven social and political issues through accessible and impactful physical narratives. We watch these questions play out; what happens when your body betrays you or buckles under the pressure? Performed by artists at the peak of physical fitness, jumping, fighting, falling to the floor, and pulling themselves back up over and over again, it’s impossible to ignore the juxtaposition in this dance piece.
Far from being monotonous, Vardimon brings humour and festivities to the stage with party hats and half-mooning for full measure. But nothing is gratuitous; having never left the hospital setting, seeing the dancing getting progressively more drunk, couples veering off together, and clothes falling around the stage is nothing but a reclamation of the bodies that have left behind their sick owners.
Lullaby’s pace is changing but never lagging. The stage is continually restructured by medical curtains — with a bit of difficulty — concealing and revealing changed rooms and new scenes for storytelling. At one point, forming a block backdrop, the only monologue of the show takes centre stage as the speaker (Lew Baker) characterises the resilience of cancer fighters and performs an embodied, choreographed fight sequence with Risa Maki. There’s always something deeply satisfying about seeing dancers do what is usually reserved for action films’ stunt performers. These fight scenes multiply throughout the show (fighting demons, cancer, and more), and though emotionally pulling from different areas, the visual similarity to the rest of the production perhaps dulls its effect and impressiveness.
In a Q&A following the performance, Vardimon turned down a question about an earthquake in the hospital that pushes down the ceiling of the set, only for the ceiling to self-correct. Instead, responding: “I am a firm believer that interpretation is an extension of the art itself.” Usually an easy thing to say when you want people to keep talking about your work after you leave the room, for physical theatre such as this, it seems even more apt. A genuinely enthralling performance, in this second iteration 26 years later, Lullaby connects new audiences with new performers, still remaining true to itself with unavoidable humility throughout.
Image by Tristram Kenton, provided for press use.
