Choreographer: Christian Rizzo
Opening the Sadler’s Wells Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels Festival, Christian Rizzo’s Sakinan Gӧze Çӧp Batar (An Over-Protective Eye Always Gets Sand in It) is an experimental solo piece from 2012 about journeys and the misdirection that life offers. Arriving on a solitary figure seemingly ready to travel away with backpack prepared, what unfolds over 50 minutes instead is a man who becomes increasingly encumbered by his life as the clean stage – once full of possibility – becomes cluttered with objects that begin an emotional weighing down.
There are three distinct phases to Rizzo’s show – performed by Kerem Gelebek – which slowly challenge the central character’s autonomy and feelings of contentment. In the first, he slowly recognises the limits of both his body and the space that contains him, the white square stage that he never moves beyond, pushing his feet into the edges and corners of the performance range while not breaching the black border beyond. Within it, he creeps and twists, moving his body across the floor at a low level, using arms, ankles and knees to rotate and fit to find unexpected angles.
In the second phase of this dance, the pace is lighter, never jaunty but free with movement that is often casual and purposefully unfinished. Now fully on his feet, Gelebek leaps and unselfconsciously dances with no purpose it seems than his own introspection. Across this segment of the dance, the feeling of being out of control and a little woozy begins to take hold as the dancer reacts to the nausea of rotation, clutching his head to find a balance once again.
Finally, the beat becomes more intense and dangerous as shadow crosses and dominates the stage more completely, and he seems no longer in possession of himself, lost in the sound. Throughout the performance, the dance area gradually fills with content, items of clothing discarded by Gelebek at intervals, carefully positioned around the stage to limit his freedom, hemming him in as though the unpacking of his life pinions him in this place with possessions and roots, a far cry from the man we thought was free at the start.
Across the show, periods of silent movement, of mechanical clanks and air-based sounds that intrude into the soundscape are intercut with music, and at the centre Gelebek deconstructs the box that he once sat on to produce a chair and plant, extracting sides used to wall one side of the stage and a scattering of books that look increasingly like a home.
Unusual work is the substance of the Van Cleef and Arpels Dance Reflections Festival and while this piece is interesting in its unfolding, there are perhaps far deeper meanings that never translate to the audience and its stated conclusion on the meaning of exile remains elusive.
Runs until 13 March 2025
