Saudade

Saudade

Choreography: Joshua Beamish
Music: Hildur Gudnadottir
Lighting Design: Mike Inwood
Performers: Joshua Beamish, Lloyd Knight, Daniel Marshalsay, Kévin Quinaou, Dominic Santia and Scott Schneider
 
Friday March 10 2017
Fleck Dance Theatre
Harbourfront Centre
 
Reviewed by Ted Fox


Choreographer/Dancer Joshua Beamish, founder of MOVETHECOMPANY, gives us the World Premiere of his production of Saudade. This is a Portugese word defined in the programme notes as a "profound melancholic longing," "a constant desire for a reality that does not, probably cannot exist."
 
Soulade illustrates the human condition of men seeking relationships in today's technological society. A mating ritual of connecting and luring the object of desire through a plumage of expressive body language. Searching for Mr. Right who exists only in their fantasies. Driven by a compulsive need that cannot be filled. Endless longing. Endless frustration of never finding him.
 
The surface messaging of the body attracts yet creates a distance between how they see each other and the real person within. There is no joy of sex here. No eroticism. Each dancer takes on and mirrors the others' language. Perhaps more attracted to images of themselves? One dancer raises his hand, palm toward him looking into as if into a mirror. More feeling is expressed in the solos where their language seems to be more open.
 
The repetition of relationships ended--pause--new one beginning-- creates anticlimaxes and a feeling the piece is about to end. I find myself ever so slowly disconnecting from this repetition of encounters and dance vocabulary. Each segment becomes anticlimactic.
 
A humorous segment occurs at the end. Two dancers sleep side by side. When they both awake, their faces visually vocalize the unspoken: Who the hell are you?
 
Saudade has the feel of a deeply personal work addressing a human condition Beamish has experienced himself.
 
Beamish's choreography is executed with aplomb by he and the other five dancers. Their fluidity of movement and flexible articulation of hands and limbs mesmerizes. The lighting and music enhance the overall atmosphere of melancholia..