PAST PROJECTS

Choreography: Dwight Rhoden
Dancers: Jan Erik Wikström, or Dragos Mihalcea and Charlotta Öfverholm
Light: Tobias Hallgren
Length: 40-45 min

PRESS:

Svenska Dagbladet, Anna Ångström

http://www.svd.se/kultur/scen/haftig-kamp-i-narbild-nar-motpoler-mots_7718150.svd

Cool struggle in close-up  when opposites meet

As a kind of grand finale of performances by Gustav Adolf Torg – at the end of April the new Dance Museum opens the doors to its new premises at Drottninggatan- we now see  Jan-Erik Wikström and Charlotta Öfverholm in a duet with the understandable and speaking title “Antithesis”.

The choreography for these temperamental opposites is created by Dwight Rhoden, who after a career in the famous Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater started his own company Complexions contemporary ballet in 1994.  And yes, you can see traces of Aileys blues style of choreography, which has an emotional theatricality of a kind rarely seen in Swedish contemporary dance.

It is precisely in the expressive intensity Charlotta Öfverholm, with a background that includes  Alvin Ailey, and the classically trained Jan-Erik Wikström have a similarity. Both dance with full expression in a kind of folie à deux of counter forces, which at times attract and at times push away eachother,  to music that moves from violent reverberations through the baroque and lyrical ballads to jazz and rock.

Already in the first scene when he in white and she in black throwing away roses ,establishes a yin and yang relationship – though she is hardly a passive partner. Here it’s more about mutual challenge that easily can tip over into aggression. Perhaps this hour is a lifelong relationship in concentrate.

White benches become weapons in a duet where the bodies at times reminiscents of taut strings.

Jan-Erik Wikström’s solos are proud with elegant precision, hers is more challenging.

In brief moments they show vulnerability, as when she with her head and feet threads through his limbs and overcome his physical defense.

After a costume change where he performs with bare chest and she in a red dress, there is a moment of playfullness, which turns into a more violent duet where she is thrown around effectively.. Basically, there are two  soloists facing each other and us – it is as if they have to seize twosomeness in a dance, which ultimately trust glimpsed as a promise of possible harmony.

It’s awesome to see this multiplied fight in close-up.

But it might show more antithesis than synthesis between these two strong performers.

EXPRESSEN Margareta Sörensson

http://bloggar.expressen.se/scenbloggen/2012/12/antithesis-dansmuseet/

But how big is the difference, really? 

In Antithesis where the American choreographer Dwight Rhoden puts two dance styles against each other, a concept that has been tried before. Classical ballet in confrontation with contemporary dance, Jan-Erik Wikström against Charlotta Öfverholm, that is.

It’s just that both Wikström and Öfverholm are exquisite dancers and also with wider eyes than that. Jan-Erik Wikström has danced in many contemporary dance works, although his starting point is the classical technique. Charlotta Öfverholm who also has a background at Alvin Ailey (as choreographer Rhoden) moves freely between contemporary accents that almost touches jazz dance and into modern dance, or merge.

The antithesis is more  about two dancers personality, and a he and a she.

The tension between them can touch to aggressivity, but it’s not a showdown between the styles that impresses and fascinates in the first place.

Dancing that is very good is simply great!

Technique is just a tool and a means, and keeps and profiles the expression. This is where these two dancers work so it sings in their bodies. Different strains of their bodies like Öfverholms athleticism, the little ephemeral in Wikströms stance – it really doesn´t matter greatly.

Which is interesting.

The music alternates between different styles, and Rhoden is skilled enough to use sounds and rhythms alternetivly, and the antithesis is very varied, stretched like a rib.

The piece grows into a kind of sketched tale of roses, power, affection, harmony and alienation.

It is very nice.

 Warsaw, PL Zawirowania Dance Festival

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.485328341545451.1073741906.127582863986669&type=1

When maturity meets youth, black meets white, red meets black, and classical dance meets contemporary dance, the result can be either great disaster or great success, destructive fight or delightfully creative meeting of complementary and cooperating dissimilarities. “Anthitesis” definitely makes for the latter.

Classical dancer and modern dancer are narrating a story of the ralation, which, together with people involved in it, is evolving and going through stages. The performers clearly indicate the differences between the characters who are separated by almost everything and have very little in common, but who are able to work together and build a new quality when balancing between the opposites. Tasteful poses and sequences of classical dance resonate with the violence and greed of modern dance movement, ballet shoes of the soloist cooperate with bare feet of the physical theater’s representative, and all that sparkles with evidence that more than one hundred-years-old war between ballet and modern dance does not make much sense. Together is better – and this statement also applies to the story. Together is sometimes harder than separately, being together can exhaust and cause concern, but considering pros and cons, together is … well: better, just like that, Aesthetically the performance subtly feels like banality. Straightforwardness of symbolic colors of the costumes may be a little too obvious and the bouquet of roses in the center of the stage may give the impression of kitsch. One has to admit, however, that the dancer in both innocent white, as well as in deep black looked perfect, and the dancer in a predatory black and passionate red fueled the space. The flowers are thrown away in disgust in the first scene, so we can forget about them. The performance, however, will stay in our memory for a very long time.