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The ways of women

A Scottish touch in a new piece from Nanohach
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By Brooke Edge
For The Prague Post
October 17th, 2007 issue

COURTESY PHOTO
The Czech troupe broadens its horizons with a piece that debuted in Edinburgh.
Resonance

When: Oct. 23 & 24 at 8
Where: Divadlo Ponec
Tickets: 190 Kč, available through Ticketpro, Ticketstream and at the venue

Honza Malík is a lithe, constantly moving embodiment of energy. While talking about modern dance in the Czech Republic, he often has trouble staying in his seat, excitedly describing creative high points and detailing financial hurdles with frustration. When the conversation turns to Resonance, a new piece by local contemporary dance company Nanohach, Malík frequently finds himself at a loss for words, replacing language with sound effects.
“The audience was like…” he stops describing the work’s Scottish premiere, sits back, opens his eyes wide and makes the sound of a bomb exploding.
Malík is a founding member of Nanohach, and served as producer and assistant choreographer on Resonance, created by fellow member Michal Záhora. Záhora joined Scottish Dance Theatre one year ago, but maintained a relationship with Nanohach, ultimately pitching a collaboration between the two companies on a work of his own creation. Resonance is the result.
Since its founding in 2004, Nanohach’s mission has been to collaborate with foreign companies, bringing outside experience to the Czech Republic and taking local choreography abroad. Its last work, Gracerunners, was created in collaboration with Norwegian company Karen Foss Quiet Works.
“It’s very important for Czech people and for us as dancers to have influences from abroad,” says Malík.
The short, contemporary Resonance is “more abstract” than Záhora’s previous work, Malík says. But, he adds, “You have it in your mind the next day.”
Záhora began creating Resonance with the idea of exploring that ever-mineable theme of male/female relationships. But “as we spoke about the piece,” Malík recalls, “it became more and more about women, about death and life and why women are on earth.”
Ultimately, Resonance evolved into an exploration of women as embodiments of the circle of life, and the opportunities, stresses and perils that carries. It is danced by three women (Lea Čapková, Dagmar Chaloupková and Andrea Lamešová) to intoxicating urban rhythms composed by Carlo Natoli.
As it was created by a man, Malík admits that the work contains an inherent undercurrent of voyeurism.
“[Záhora] tried to create an atmosphere that is prohibited to watch, but you want to watch them … like you are watching secrets,” he explains. “The atmosphere is like…” — Malík dramatically draws in his breath and makes a frightened face — “like, not uncomfortable, but tension.”
The name of the piece, he says, is intentionally vague, and meant to convey different ideas to different people. It is essentially about “the resonance of the voice, of the body” in whatever form that may take for each individual viewer.
In Scotland, the piece debuted under the name Second Storm. The titular change wasn’t meant to dumb down the work, exactly, but Malík explains it by saying that in Great Britain, “The audience is different; the mind is different … Somehow the audience here in Prague is more educated in contemporary dance.”
Second Storm premiered in September as part of the Scottish Dance Theatre’s fall season, and was performed by three dancers from its company. The response of the audience there was what prompted Malík to impersonate a bomb dropping. But if ticket-holders in Scotland were stunned, area critics reacted favorably.
Edinburgh entertainment website The Stage described the work as “enthralling and emotionally charged.” Glasgow’s The Herald wrote that Second Storm was “dramatic … in a mystical way that shimmers with all kinds of possible interpretations” and “a feast for the senses,” comparing the three female dancers to priestesses or Fates.
To round out the evenings headlined by Resonance, two of the dancers will also perform original solo pieces: Gradina by Chaloupková, and Hechizada de Luxe by Capková.
In a night featuring a male view of women’s primary role in life, these two solos bring “more color for the evening,” Malík says — without sound effects.

Brooke Edge can be reached at features@praguepost.com


Other articles in Night & Day (17/10/2007):

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