Basque Showcase presents emerging choreographies from the Basque Country by the company Erain – formed by a duo of young dancers – and Helena Wilhelmsson, a Swedish dancer based in the region. If Basque Showcase is anything to go by, dance in the Basque Country is in rude health.
First up is Erain’s piece ‘Jarraibiderik Gabe’. The stage starts littered with heavy-duty plastic pipes, while a soundtrack of drilling, hammering and sawing fills the space. Set amongst the concrete beams of Studio 3 in Dance Base, there is a clear sense of being trapped in an inhuman, industrial setting.
The dancers emerge, slowly gathering and connecting the pipes, disembodied limbs protruding and vanishing from the pipe ends as they go. As the soundtrack becomes more organic – cicadas now suggesting some hilltop building site baking in the sun – so too do their movements. The dancers are constantly in sync, rarely performing the same steps but always complimentary.
‘Jarraibiderik Gabe’ offers moments of connection and rejection. A disembodied voice commands the dancers to ‘make it fit’ and put ‘everything in its place’, somewhere between a construction manual and a self-help book.
As the piece progresses, music and movement become increasingly mechanical and robotic, the dancers clicking together like organic tools. There is something uncanny about these human machines. Gradually, they spin out of control, melting into liquid or air.
Throughout, each dancer is excellent, entirely their own unit while working in perfect concert with their partner. Although ‘Jarraibiderik Gabe’ defies direct interpretation, the precision of the choreography and the skill of its performers ensures its sense of control is gripping and intriguing throughout.
‘Trembling Frequencies’ by Helena Wilhelmsson is a different sort of proposition altogether, messily human and full of emotion. It starts somewhat inauspiciously, with Wilhelmsson swaddled in a trenchcoat, perched on a bucket with her back to the audience and humming, However, once she gets up and dancing, the piece becomes swiftly enthralling.
As well as the trenchcoat, Wilhelmsson is wearing a scarf and sunglasses, like some 1960s Hollywood starlet trying to hide from the press. She presents demure, fashion magazine poses and moves precisely across the stage.
However, cracks soon start to appear. First she loses the sunglasses, then the headscarf, and finally the coat. Her movements become wilder and more urgent, while never losing their form and sense of intent. What at first seems like a breaking free swiftly becomes just a breaking, as repressed, pent-up energies erupt from Wilhelmsson’s body. It is hard to tell if the result is hedonism or self-destruction.
The two pieces complement each other perfectly. Their contrasting themes of control and letting go, the human and the inhuman, emotion and the lack of it, are an excellent match. ‘Jarraibiderik Gabe’ and ‘Trembling Frequencies’ make for an enthralling Basque double bill.
Performed at Assembly @ Dance Base on 11 August as part of the Edinburgh Fringe
07-16 August (not 10), 13:00
Running time: 1 hour, no interval
Created and performed by Erain and Helena Wilhelmsson