Dance theatre that plays with the audience, confounding expectations, Blaas subverts notions of spectator and participant, outside and inside.
From the stormy to the serene, Blaas (Blow) by Dutch company Schweigman is a show about feeling and being in space, and unusual in that for the most part, you don’t actually see the performers. This adds a certain magic.
Instead the audience experiences a hall empty apart from swathes of white fabric that slowly come to life as a billowing, floating shapes, spotlit and dancing over the white floor as if moved by external forces, sometimes tumbling gracefully, at others swept violently into a corner as if by a sudden gust of wind, accompanied by a subtle atmospheric soundtrack. It interacts with and envelops the audience, turning spectators into participants.
A second, much larger shape consumes the first, and then things take an unexpected turn with outside and inside reversed dramatically as the second, larger shape is revealed as a cavern, which we are invited to enter into by a woman who emerges from a previously invisible tunnel entrance. Once inside, a storm rages beyond, while the light changes from day to night and back.
A good amount of time was spent sitting in silence in close proximity to complete strangers in a womb-like environment, which proved rather meditative and pleasant, if soporific.
Enveloping Blaas was a sense of wonder coupled with slight confusion, even humour, particularly the final surprise, when we were delivered to an unexpected ending point.
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