Extra!_Extra!_Mime_Review_M_Couzens_Pasa_Doble_Barbican

Bite 08

Co-produced by Centre Choregraphique National d’Orleans

Paso Doble

Photo by Christophe Raynaud de Lage

Miquel Barcelo and Josef Nadj

Barbican Theatre

16 – 19 January 2008

When French choreographer Josef Nadj commented to his Catalan artist friend, Miquel Barceló that he would like to ‘become part of an artwork,’ a unique collaboration was set in motion the result of which became Paso Doble.

An artist, a choreographer and ten tons of wet clay – the possibilities are, seemingly, endless. Yet it is in what is unseen rather than what the pair create that the mythic power of this curious piece resides.

While watching Paso Doble, one almost finds oneself lapsing into a primal state, responding to the performance like an infant gurgling at the wag of a finger, which is apt, as it is the wagging fingers of Barcelo and Nadj breaking through their back wall of clay which induces audience giggling prior to their actual appearance.

As the pair scrape and dig on the clay beneath their feet and behind them, tossing their refuse at the back wall as they go along, a spontaneous artwork gradually begins to take shape, and an oddly striking one it is too, with its skeletal scratchings and protruding bumps. Their movements are not necessarily synchronized but rather, in slightly off-kilter harmony. But a new level of organized chaos was reached as each emerged from either side of their backdrop, bearing one huge clay vessel after another that had been thrown, but not yet fired, making them pliable enough to be molded into whatever they had a mind to, mind being the operative word, as said vessels were routinely plopped over their heads one after the other to be blindly shaped into creatures suggestive of archetypal beasts.

The fact that such spontaneity can only be the result of careful orchestration only served to make its’ convincing air of come what may all the more impressive. However, the most dramatic moments of the performance occurred when Nadj physically became part of the artwork itself. Once the transient work was completed, multitudinous cameras emerged from pockets, with grinning artist Barceló, turning the tables by photographing the audience.

A spacey, industrial soundscape by Composer and Sound Designer Alain Mahe percolates smartly along with the movements, synching neatly with physical gestures of artist and choreographer. Live sampled sounds intermittently interspersed with layered material imbued the proceedings with a grainy, work in progress texture.

As Barceló and Nadj paused in tandem at regular intervals to assess the progress of their work with their dark suited, clay spattered backs to the audience, thoughts of those who’d been known for making ‘fine messes’, a la Stan and Ollie, sprang to mind, aided, perhaps, by the fact that the two are so dissimilar in appearance. But maybe the point is, after all, that one’s reaction to what is being created and how it is being done is just as open to interpretation as the artwork itself.