Sacred monsters • 24 September 2006 • The SnowBlog

Sacred monsters

          

There are some benefits to living in London. Being twenty minutes from Sadler's Wells is one of them. Last night Andy (who I don't think I've introduced. Andy, meet the internet. Internet, meet Andy, my perfect husband and the man whose patient willingness to pay for the cat food and the mortgage has led to you reading this blog) and I went to see Sacred Monsters, the latest Sylvie Guillem production. 

I'm no dance critic: all that can be said is that I stared at the stage, round-eyed, for an hour and a half, in awe at what can be done with the body and how it can express what I would have thought could only be achieved with language. The reason I'm mentioning it here on Snowbooks' blog is because of the nature of the production. It's a critical rant; a backlash against classical training. Guillem is angry about the constraints of the traditional ballet school; she breaks convention to speak to the audience about her frustrations of not being allowed to find your own path or alter the rules in the traditional school. The critique gives way to a duet in which Sylvie wraps herself around her partner, and both twine their arms and move their upper bodies so they become like the Hindu god Shiva, the purifier who destroys in order to create. 

So if you know anything about the genesis of Snowbooks you can see why I'd enjoy it.  
Emma