Kiss & Cry

 
 
 
Kiss & Cry

Created by Dancer Michele Anne De Mey, Jaco Van Dormael and Collectif

Choreography, Nanodanses: Michele Anne De Mey & Gregory Grosjean
 
Dancers: Michele Anne De Mey & Gregory Grosjean
 
Bluma Appel Theatre, Toronto, February 4-7 2016
 
 
REVIEWED BY TED FOX
 
Kiss & Cry is a Belgian production from Charleroi Danse Productions that is magical multi-disciplinary theatre at its best.
 
On first entering the theatre, one sees  a stage covered with miniatures on tables, beneath a movie screen. These small sets include a railway station with a toy train running through, a Victorian house, and a white landscape on which tiny figures are scattered.
 
Beneath the screen on stage the technicians and two dancers scurry about, as they prepare for the live-creation-to-screen presentation that make this all come alive in the moment.
 
It begins with a woman sitting on a railway platform unboxing memories of her life, starting with her first love as a young girl when her hand touched a boy's on a crowded train. She never saw him again. This triggers memories of the hands of previous lovers long forgotten or perhaps dead. Maybe even imaginary.
 
The relationship is danced by a male hand and a female hand that take on human characteristics. The hands are those of choreographer/dancer Michelle Anne De Mey and dancer Gregory Grosjean. De Mey has in the past performed in creations of Rosas founder Anne Teresa De Kaersmacker.
 
They interact physically to inject their feeling into the hands on the screen. In the love scenes they slide their hands sensually down each other's backs, and clasp each other's waists, transforming their sexuality into the love scenes. Pillows and sheets add to this.
 
In the dance segments De Mey and Grosjean sway back using their whole bodies, heads turned up and arms up and back, and then diving down and sliding their hands into view on the screen. This really works in transforming the range of emotions they experience into the hands.
 
The soundscape employs to good effect music selections from a variety of sources, including Handel and Verdi.
 
The camerawork is stunning in the way it transforms the hands in so many ways. The images become abstract, surreal, and dream-like.
 
And always the little figure of the woman sits on the platform, waiting for her first love to re-appear. I found this piece very poignant and sad as she gets older and older.
 
Oh, yes, even dancer Grosjean's heel makes an appearance, as the character of a particularly uptight nasty "cheese grater" of a lover.