Review: MURMURATION LEVEL 2, Sadeck Berrabah - Peacock Theatre
Photo credit: Fabien Malot
Besties, you may remember our review of the recent Gala da Danza and the highlight of that show, an excerpt from French dance sensation, Murmuration Level 2. So we were delighted to see the whole show at the Peacock last night and what a performance it was!
The person behind the show is self-taught dancer and choreographer Sadeck Berrabah – behind the show but also in front of the dancers at some points. A murmuration is the name for a vast flock of starlings, wheeling and turning in unison, and apt as a title for the piece, and birdsong featured on the soundtrack. Barrabah is interested in symmetry, mathematics and poetry, and this seems to have led to his focus on his performers moving in unison and with great precision.
The thirty highly disciplined and skilled dancers are mostly lined up in front of us and movement is focused on head and arms rather than legs or movement across the stage. Key movements are centred on forearms, always mobile and creating shapes and patterns, and uniting together in rippling waves of movement. Costume is mostly black but cleverly, the shirts are cut low at the elbow so that the upper arms are hidden, enabling the forearm patterns to be more clearly seen.
It is very difficult to describe in writing the incredible impact of seeing such movements in unison done, not just well, but immaculately, with no faltering and no room for error. The soundtrack is credited to T-Rex, but Barrabah thanked his “little brother” for the music – no name supplied. No credit either for the creative and dramatic lighting design, greatly enhancing the movement on stage. Most of the audience had no information about the performance and this was frustrating; one audience member pointed out that all we know is the name on the poster. Surely an information sheet, a video screen or a QR code with a weblink could have been provided: work as good as this should not stay uncredited.
Those frustrations aside, we were surrounded by delighted audience members who were stunned by the virtuosity and precision displayed. Although the dancers use their own bodies unaccompanied by props, occasional use is made of wooden boxes to provide different levels or from which to produce objects that give a flash of colour – hats with red linings at one point, gold umbrellas, small lights and, in the finale, jackets with glowing linings that open and close in unison.
Barrabah stepped forward to speak to the audience and announced that the best was yet to come – as we were all to learn to dance like his company – or at least to perform a few of the basic moves. “Let’s do something beautiful together,” he said. He then proceeded to teach the whole Peacock audience four sets of arm movements and claps, doing so with humour and engagement although insisting on a degree of rigour, and achieving a remarkably impressive result from the audience – who, by this point, were ready to do anything he asked.
And then that encore, topping even what had gone before with a costume change and a sublime final moment when the arms of the company spelt out, at bewildering speed, “We just want to say thank you.” Stunning.
***** Five stars
Reviewed by: Chris Abbott