Dialogue With Lucinda at Lillian Baylis Studio

Dialogue With Lucinda at Lillian Baylis Studio

28 September, 2010
by: Naima Khan

Rosemary Butcher's Festival of Miniatures continues with Nicole Beutler's beautifully paced Dialogue with Lucinda

Lucinda Childs called her piece 'Radial Courses' because she felt 'Running in Circles' sounded too dull, one of the four performers tells us. She is brief and slightly out of breathe as she finishes her explanation of what’s happening, drawing on the style of Child's memorable monologues in Nicole Beutler’s creation Dialogue With Lucinda at Lillian Baylis Studio.

Part of Rosemary Butcher’s Festival of Miniatures, Nicole Beutler’s re-working of two of Child’s originals, Radial Courses and Interior Drama, is her attempt to get at the person behind the performer that is Lucinda Childs. Her work fits in well with the festival; it's an exploration of space that pushes the audience to see things differently.

At Lillian Baylis the seats have been sectioned off and the audience gathers around the performance space to watch the repetitive movement and spot the change. In Child's style Beutler has her performers reverse the movement as they change direction and pace and skip through the air.

Through Dialogue with Lucinda, Beutler explores the person behind the performer by highlighting the detail in the performances. In Radial Courses, two men and two women move constantly in a circle, keeping pace with each other in a block of four. Their upper bodies are still and their feet move quickly. Dressed in various shades of grey and all wearing the same unisex, white Converse, it's her choice to give the female performers bright red lipstick that stands out. The four subtly change places, taking turns to walk the inner circle before two break away and skip to their own measure of time.

There's something of a dialogue about the piece. There's a formula, timing and cues but, as one of the dancers explains, they often have to consciously avoid crashing into each other – which sometimes happens during the performance. Most noticeably, the layout brings you close to the dancers and, coupled with a display of movements that appear so deceptively simple, makes you want to join in.

Nicole Beutler's Dialogue with Lucinda concludes with an homage to her 1977 piece Interior Drama. Beutler does a fantastic job of highlighting children's musicality and brings it to a contemporary audience. Seated this time, we watch as the dancers move backwards and forwards in unison, while their legs move from side to side to the sound of rhythmic handheld percussion that reminds me of Geppetto's workshop full of wooden clocks. A heavy bass kicks in and amplifies each pendular movement before we return to a classical sounding piano as the dancers continue their ritualistic performance and embellish it with light, wistful arm gestures. This short, utterly absorbing piece is a great choice for the Rosemary Butcher Festival of Miniatures and precedes Lapped Translated Lines which begins on October 1st. 

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Naima Khan