Playful, passionate and poignant, Sweet Mambo soulfully celebrates the enduring legacy of Pina Bausch. Rating
Excellent
Pina Bausch is not a name that will be forgotten any time soon. Her extraordinary work has changed what theatre can look like, combining dance and drama to give insightful perception into the core of humanity. Sweet Mambo was her penultimate work before her death in 2009, and this month it finally sees its London premiere at Sadler’s Wells.
It begins with dancer Naomi Brito appealing to the audience to “Remember my name”, a refrain reiterated by dancers throughout the show and which leans into the idea of this piece celebrating the great choreographer’s legacy. Reinforcing the theme, alongside younger performers we additionally welcome the return of seven of the dancers from the original 2008 production. Age and talent are blended seamlessly and quite beautifully, with Nazareth Panadero, now aged 71, bringing some of the most moving and humorous moments to the show.
Sweet Mambo is a captivating distillation of all the things Tanztheater Wuppertal do so well. It explores the many aspects of human emotion and experience, combining, passion, humanity, playfulness, melancholy and poignancy – and is at once personal and universal. Relationships are sculpted, torn apart, reshaped and reimagined whilst explored by a seamlessly integrated ensemble. Stories are told through dance, tensions and spoken word and the performance is at times absurd, exuberant, joyful, expansive, mischievous – but unswervingly life-affirming
Against the neutral palette of the backdrop, Marion Cito’s costume design sees the women dressed in elegant shifts and gowns, which suggest physical femininity and glamour yet are often defiantly colourful, providing armour against the shadowy men who seem creepily predatory in the surreal, sensual dreamscapes here imagined. Designer Peter Pabst, a collaborator with the company for nearly 30 years, provides vast, wind-blown, billowing drapes that caress the dancers as they move fluidly in, around and with them. Huge projections screen extracts from the stylish 1938 black and white movie Blaufuchs against them, animated from floor to ceiling, and in one breathtaking moment Brito is cocooned in the billowing white clouds – both organic and liquid in their movement – as we hear Lisa Ekdahl sympathetically crooning ‘Cry Me a River’. The piece is rich in vitality, questioning boundaries and making time uncertain as the performers slink amongst curtains, into film, or directly engage the audience, persuading them to be active participants in life.
Formed as a series of vignettes over multiple possible lifetimes, the production’s mood is able to shift in an instant, with a crafted soundtrack helping link and propel events forward. From jazz party music to Ryuichi Sakamoto to Portishead, surprising and varied platforms complement the intricate physicality of the choreography. And there’s further, rich depth found in the many accents and languages of the charismatic cast as they speak, naming themselves and demanding acknowledgment.
The production has an electrifying, sensory level. Energising, elemental touches work in harmony with the emotional turbulence performed, evoking the joyfulness of spring, the terror of a lightning storm, the power of the wind. It’s visceral as buckets of water drench Julie Shanahan, leaving her prostrate on the floor. But there’s additionally some exquisite comedy, including a hilarious self-improvement technique from Julie Anne Stanzak, which urges us to “Say ‘brush’” to create just the hint of a smile when attending a dinner party.
Sweet Mambo is a truly exhilarating thing of beauty. It celebrates heritage, talent, and human reinvention in many forms and is a reminder of what Bausch is all about – blending dance with spectacular theatre and the captivating enactment of human being and possibility, with all its flaws. Sweet as honey, this Mambo is an enduring legacy for Pina Bausch.
Direction and Choreography: Pina Bausch
Set Design and Video Projection: Peter Pabst
Costume Design: Marion Cito
Musical Collaboration: Matthias Burkert, Andreas Eisenschneider
Collaboration: Marion Cito, Thusnelda Mercy, Robert Sturm
Music: Barry Adamson, Trygve Seim, Gustavo Santaolalla, Hope Sandoval, Portishead, Lucky Pierre, Hazmat Modine, Ju Miyake, Mecca Bodega, Cluster & Eno, Lisa Ekdahl, Mari Boine, René Aubry, Mina Agossi, Ryuichi Sakamoto, lan Simmonds
Sweet Mambo plays at Sadler’s Wells until Saturday 21 February.
