Dance review: T(r)APPED

Published on Sunday 21 June 2009 21:59

*** TRAVERSE, EDINBURGH

CHOREOGRAPHER Maresa von Stockert was inspired by the former German Democratic Republic for her latest show, but very quickly the line between past and present, home and abroad becomes blurred. We're so used to surveillance techniques in the UK that we no longer see them: CCTV; painted lines we can't cross; strict passport photo rules and ever-increasing layers of red tape and bureaucracy.

Through these and more, von Stockert poses the pertinent question: how far will it go, and for what purpose?

Set in a timeless state attributed to no particular country, T(r)APPED features two related couples living under an oppressive regime.

Accused of writing inflammatory song lyrics against the government, one man finds himself under investigation, with sinister consequences for his whole family.

Much of this is played out through spoken word, evoking the age-old debate about dancers acting. The accepted wisdom being that dancers speak best with their bodies, and von Stockert does little to reverse this viewpoint. Far more effective are the moments of chilling, military-style synchronicity or the sequence where two laboratory workers turn into vicious sniffer dogs.

The ace in von Stockert's pack, however, is the multipurpose set. Two cage-like structures, which the dancers make agile use of as the space metamorphoses from living-room to office to prison cell. And what they do with a card box file has to be seen to be believed.