Overview: Ink, Sadler’s Wells – Every part Theatre

Overview: Ink, Sadler’s Wells

An impressive piece of efficiency artwork, INK virtually defies definition. Created and co-performed by Dimitris Papaioannou the result’s a mesmerising, virtually cinematic explosion of visible artwork and motion.  A manufacturing that’s, in the principle, carried out in silence the extraordinary lighting takes the type of one other voice reworking the auditorium and stage from monochrome to glistening glamour, from stark silhouette to shining attract.

Papaioannou labored initially as a painter and comics artist earlier than turning into a director, choreographer, performer and stage designer, the affect of his background clear in Ink’s startlingly visible presentation.  Right here he collaborates with Suka Horn, a German dancer and trainer who performs his son. The opening options Papaioannou turning on a hose and flooding the stage. The one sound is that of the water cascading throughout the stage as its reflections neatly dance throughout the ceiling above.  An acrobatic, virtually circus-like routine follows, utilizing a glass bowl as each prop and receptacle.  Because the waves of water clear it turns into obvious one other bare physique is on the ground, squirming, underneath a plastic sheet. The sheet and water obscure the person’s options initially to the extent that the shape seems non-human and featureless, virtually translucent. Clearly a youthful man than Papaioannou, their rigorously choreographed duet transforms right into a duel: concurrently acrobatic, forceful, humourous, with a contact of the grotesque. They’re one another’s opposites: one clothed and older, the youthful bare, however to the spectator nonetheless related in look. 

All through the stage is continually flooded with water and the performers completely drenched.  Wholly non-verbal, the efficiency depends on the sounds of the water and the visions of tableaux enhanced by lighting constructions, to offer the narrative alongside their motion. In the direction of the ultimate third the sound of jazzy brass tones intervene unexpectedly to lend a comic book tone, earlier than a crescendo of strings takes over to intensify expectation. An octopus (impressed, in accordance with the programme, by a childhood reminiscence of Papaioannou’s) is each prop and appendage. Extremely entertaining, it’s each suggestive of sexual organs and efficiency similtaneously channelling infantile humour.  It’s this dichotomy that summarises this work. Ink is an awfully intelligent, acrobatic, hyper visible piece of labor specializing in the power of bodily motion and connection heightened by way of lighting and musical accompaniment. It performs on contrasting human feelings because the viewers is usually left not sure how they need to react.  It raises questions, however leaves the observer with out solutions.  Barely over an hour in size, it nonetheless represents a durational resilience of efficiency that displays the human spirit.

Created, directed and choreographed by: Dimitris Papaioannou

Ink performs at Sadler’s Wells till 2March. Additional info and bookings could be discovered right here.