Jasmin Vardimon Company, Peacock Theatre, London

It's tempting to see the influence of military service in the tough, low-slung moves of Jasmin Vardimon

Reviewed,Jenny Gilbert
Saturday 22 November 2008 20:00 EST
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Israeli dance-makers have been unusually conspicuous over the past few weeks, and an artistic kinship between them has emerged. First came Emanuel Gat, then Ohad Naharin, followed by Hofesh Shechter on tour from Stirling to Cornwall, his group becoming Brighton Dome's first company-in-residence along the way. And now there's Jasmin Vardimon, another choreographer in whose tough, low-slung moves it's not hard to detect a tough, no-nonsense attitude born of compulsory military service.

Not that Vardimon spent her two years in the army shooting targets. She trained as a psychological interviewer, and claims that this supplied her with a lifetime's worth of human stories to feed into her dance-theatre pieces. Yesterday, the most recent, unites elements of several Vardimon shows made in the 10 years since she formed her company, including reworked scenes from Lullaby (2001), Park (2005) and Justitia (2007), unified by Guy Bar-Amotz's designs, but only roughly cohering under the theme of memory. Are audiences interested in personal career highlights? I'm not sure Vardimon has yet earned the right to be self-referential, but some of her ideas are certainly arresting enough to warrant a second life.

Too bad the opening suffered a technical glitch the night I saw it. A female figure wields a fishing rod, and stands balancing in wellington boots on the upturned feet of a man who is lying on his back. It suggests a wobbly reflection in water. Clever too was the intention that a tiny camera suspended from the rod would transmit views of the audience to the back wall of the stage, indicating, perhaps, that the yesterdays the show was about to visit could equally be the spectators' own. Instead, all we got was electronic snowstorm, and it was left to other sketches, in a show that looked about as random as a TV sketch show, to justify Vardimon's reputation for thought-provoking camerawork.

The same dancer, YunKrung Song, soon reappears in her vest and pants and approaches a device fixed to the floor. Lying on her stomach, she peers into its lens, causing her face to be projected giant-size on a wall behind. The camera then explores her body, following the trail of a marker pen as she draws on her skin, making diversions around old scars and sketching a map of the British Isles on the sole of her foot. The enforced intimacy is surprisingly touching.

The body as home, the housing of experience, emerges as the dominant theme, with violence as its conduit. Luke Burrough delivers a medical lecture while fending off judo attacks from Mafalda Deville. Like a cancer cell, she ricochets, coming back at him more savagely still. Later she hugs a pillow to find that it has X-ray qualities, revealing the naked limbs under her dress. More pillows appear, then burst, and a chicken-elbowed group dance fights with clouds of feathers.

But the strongest image again relies on the floor camera. As Song draws the crude outline of a house on her bare stomach, its projected large version fills with life-size occupants, and real drama erupts when – as Song gradually smudges the drawing – the house smoulders, catches fire and burns down, complete with alarmingly realistic smoke and soot. This particular yesterday is surely not one many share. But if unpredictability in dance is a virtue, then Vardimon has a future.

'Yesterday' resumes touring in Jan ( jasminvardimon.com )

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