New texts on dance: "Zeppelin Bend (work-in-progress)"

I enter a space that reminds me of a fitness center. Βirds are singing. Two women dressed alike in shorts and sneakers enter from the sides, go up to a square platform and start wrestling. They are not harsh. They seem like they care for each other and at the same time about the transfer of weight and their grips. The sound of their movement is amplified, and in addition to birds singing I am transferred to ancient Greece, watching two strong and tender women, fighting in nature, instead of men.

Music comes, giving the kind of loud clear beat one can hear in fitness classes or clubs, and they begin to dance with intense aerobics, playful simple moves and rhythmical motifs. Once they decide to get off the ring, they start running in circles like wanton rabbits. A “beep” brings them back to the wrestling. They continue with less energy, but again with this childlike wish to continue moving even if the battery is low and all they can do is headbanging.

They don’t stop. Headbanging persists, leading them to explore physical and emotional states that transform their bodies and faces, and move them in space until each climbs a white rope. Suspended in the air, in a space between force and abandon, they look at us from above while Pink Floyd sing “Breathe, breathe in the air. Don't be afraid to care. Leave, but don't leave me. Look around. Choose your own ground.”

In "Zeppelin Bend", wellness practices fight against self-consciousness and orientation, disciplined body against impulses, decisions against spontaneity, and air against the floor. Katerina Andreou doesn’t reject the disciplined, activated body, but dares to breathe and to propose a return to childlike qualities and pleasures.

A beautiful and strong work in progress that I can’t wait to watch in its totality.

Claiming her own uncompromising stage vocabulary, Katerina Andreou ventures to her first take on a dance duet. “Zeppelin Bend” is imbued with ambiguity referring to both space –a playground or maybe a fitness bootcamp– and the very relationship between two female performers. Dressed in identical outfits – as if teammates in a sports squad– the two play constantly with the indistinct limits that lie between them; each of them seems in dialogue with the other half of herself. However, despite their seeming resemblance, this game of replication is not aimed at identifying/simulating one with the other –thus, making us perceive them as one–, but rather at a comparison that complexifies their simultaneous actions.

In this type of co-existence, emphasized either through wrestling grips of the Greco-Roman style or by means of jumpstyle movement that draws from techno culture, the “competitive other” is not just an excuse to duplicate actions, but to explore potential limits of freedom in shared body practices and techniques (sport, dance, and so on). Movement material isn’t consistent; on the contrary, like the platforms or islets on stage, movement variations underline spatial and temporal inconsistencies as the foundation for new ways of inhabiting the stage. Suspension from the ropes, or head-banging to music of Pink Floyd serve as a reminder of the obsessive ways in which children occupy themselves with play, their unanticipated pleasure in and attachment to actions to which they give themselves with every fiber of their beings. While dance craft in “Zeppelin Bend” might at times seem “unnatural” –the sing-song of birds, or the layer of smoke that shrouds the entire stage at some point heightens further this impression– this is only because it indicates an “outside” or “elsewhere”, countering our experience of the stage with an unfamiliar lightness. Such versatility doesn’t only encompass the relationship between the two performers but also gives a differing meaning to it, constantly stepping beyond the horizon of the expected.

Two tomboy twins trot on training turf. They are identical, they wear black shoes, long shorts, blue T-shirts with an orange “I” on the back and they have curly hair in perfect 16th-century fashion. They first wrestle on the ring under strong beat music, until they rest a bit. There is a transition to a more free period, and then starts the run. “Run, rabbit, run,” sing Pink Floyd, and the two gallop round the stage, knees up. Then again a resting transition and recreational music. They start to move their heads up and down in a mechanical frenzy. At first they move perfectly coordinated, then start to phase while keeping the intensity. They climb a bit on a pair of ropes, and they open a podium where they have hidden water and dry ice, which they use to create a fog. They do their final stretching, carrying each other, and then they leave.

Some 50 minutes and 5000 burnt calories since they began, I stand in awe of their remarkable feat of endurance, coordination and sheer stamina, but I still try to find a properly dance quality in their physical exploits. Since it is presented as a work in progress under the greatest institutional auspices (Centre Pompidou, and others) one may expect that the final version will find in the overall structuring the aesthetic engagement I missed in the detail of the movement.

Note: A "Zeppelin Bend" is a symmetrical and inherently secure end-to-end joining knot (Wikipedia).

We have just been told we can enter the performance space, and the doors open. We find ourselves inside a setting reminiscent of a CrossFit gym: two wooden platforms are placed on the floor, car tires hang from the ceiling at the center of the space, and two climbing ropes hang in corners.

The choreographer and performer Katerina Andreou is at the edge of the stage, attentively watching the audience enter. The performance begins with her meeting the second female performer on one of the two wooden platforms, and a battle reminiscent of Greco-Roman wrestling ensues. The two performers wear identical sports kit and look alike, to the point where their individuality borders on being lost. They commit themselves fully to an evenly-balanced match that involves great physical exertion and effort, but without any sense of rivalry. And while they seem focused on this activity, a proclivity towards extricating themselves from this action begins to appear.

During the course of the performance, we see a series of specific movement motifs being repeated, which hide the faces of the two performers, making them seem even more similar. Their bodies reflect the endless struggle of humankind between discipline and freedom. Their bodies work out non-stop, and are often pushed to the very limits of physical exhaustion.

In contrast to the platforms, which play a limiting role, the climbing ropes offer pleasant respite from this exhausting repetition – a game of suspension that gives a sense of freedom.

During the course of the performance, the music gradually exerts an intense influence over the two performers. Like little children reacting instinctively to a rhythm, they respond to and get carried along by the electronic music. Something similar happens in the audience, where people bop gently to the beat.

Within this demanding environment dominated by discipline, space is made for moments of freedom through play and rhythm. It is an attempt to explore the limits of the self, and the small but important elements that differentiate us from others.