Choreographer: Trajal Harrell
Half an hour before midnight on 24 January 1975, the pianist Keith Jarrett walked onto the stage of the Köln Opera House and conjured an hour of improvised magic out of a beaten-up, out-of-tune Bösendorfer baby grand piano with missing notes. The record of that concert has become the best-selling solo artist’s album ever, and it is a well-loved, exquisitely crafted piece of music. The choreographer Trajal Harrell has accomplished something approaching the opposite of this. On the shiny new stage of Sadler’s Wells East, with a perfect sound system, he has taken a company of dancers from his Zürich Dance Ensemble and created 50 minutes of staggering ugliness.
Seven padded benches on a bare stage, a single dancer in the left corner with a dress draped around his shoulder, with a selection of Joni Mitchell’s greatest hits pumping out of the sound system, raises his arms and lowers them, sits down on a bench and stamps gently, then for 20 minutes Harrell and his company sit on the benches, swing their arms and sway a bit. Keith Jarrett’s cascading music takes over from Joni, and one by one, the seven dancers stand up, stagger around, perform what appears to be an amateur dramatic drunk act, and sit down again. Sometimes, for variety’s sake, they do impressions of cat-walk models.
It is hard to make good dancers look clumsy, but Harrell manages it. It is hard to listen to the precision and delicacy of Jarrett’s playing and not find something elegant in it, not find the pedal rhythms of the piece compelling and dynamic, but the dancers pretty much ignore the background noise so that they can wander round the stage to the beat of their own drummer.
The assumption must be that competent dancers have elected to look this ungainly and uncoordinated. The larger question is why? And what does it have to do with the music they move in spite of? The piece is entitled The Köln Concert, but it could have been presented in front of any music from anyone’s phone collection, which would at least have prevented any expectation of Jarrett-esque grace and beauty.
Runs until 5 April 2025
The Reviews Hub Score
Graceless Grotesque Grating
Great review – I couldn’t agree more. I’m a menopausal women with stiff joints and it struck me last night that there wasn’t one move in that performance that I couldn’t have done. Such a waste of good dancers and fantastic music.
Absolutely agree. It was dreadful. For much of the (mercifully short) production I closed my eyes to avoid squirming with embarrassment. I expect dancers to be technically accomplished and in sympathy with the music. This company was not even close. Some people cheered at the end. It was the equivalent of emperors new clothes.
I agree, it was absolutely dreadful. Such a waste of my time and money. It’s a shame we didn’t get to see the best of these highly accomplished dancers.