Photo: Herman Sorgeloos

Zeitung was a bit of a puzzle to me. Repeatedly during the piece I found myself willing for the dancing to end – for the lights to go off and the audience to surge towards the doors – but when the applause eventually came I desperately wanted it to stop and for the piece to continue. I’m not sure why. Maybe the act of finishing is an endearing one. The bows could have been just another fragment of the piece. Another combination of light, sound and movement. Another little whole with its own triumphant beginning and end.

I write ‘another’ because there were many – many beginnings, endings and combinations. Again and again the audience was called to attention, transported and gently deposited to be revved up and again called to attention. And, rightly, we attended – captivated by the music and the dancers’ gaze and bodies. Their shudders, leaps, grasps and quiet walks. They found their home in the choreography and had command over the constant shifting and juxtaposition of movement which (weeks later) still manages to awaken amazement in me – rendering useless every perception of cliché or categorisation that I have ever held.

Yet, despite the many beginnings and endings, somehow repetition did not find its place. And I wanted it to. Each section was too polished and complete for the audience to be able to find what might be reaching into or out of it in order for it to be bound to the rest of the piece. The whole work seemed to lack a spine or engine which could have been found if the structure had been allowed to be recognised as a repetitive one. But it wasn’t. Instead, it was presented as a running tap. A tap which, of course, could produce both chocolate and champagne but was sadly still running due to negligence rather than need.