BY MORAG PHILLIPS
[star rating =5/5]
Love Cycle OCD, is one of two works at this year’s Edinburgh International Festival brought to us by choreographer SHARON EYAL and multi-media designer GAI BEHAR. The L-E-V Dance Company was born five years ago out of collaboration between Eyal and Behar.They consistently produce works of profound intricacy and a visceral appeal. This new work is further enhanced by the music of ORI LICKTIK using Techno beat and percussion to adhere the dancers into a frenzied cornucopia of rhythm.
Eyal was born in Jerusalem. She danced with The Bathsheva Company in Israel. She also created choreography for them and latterly served as Assistant Artistic Director. Many of Eyals works explore the subject of love. Love Cycle OCD does exactly this.
This love however is not pretty; it is compulsive, frenzied and a battle between the desire to break free but being unable to survive without. It takes us down into a deep dark place where the dancer struggles to be in control but she is constrained by her own compulsions and the persistence of her companions to draw her back into an overwhelming cobweb of repetition. You can feel the angst; you can feel the despair. It drips over the edge of the stage and permeates into you.
The music starts as silence while the lights very slowly come up and reveal a barely visible human form. The lights emphasise the toned and sculpted shape of the lone dancer’s body. She moves almost as if through water. Her arms and torso gleam with a thousand ripples. There is an odd clicking and you begin to realise it is in perfect time, like a swiss watch.
For quite some time the dancer moves through the murky shadows, her arms reach backwards as they do in Flamenco dance. Her back bending almost to the floor. The pulsating of the music becomes more intense and the brilliant use of percussion and digital sounds become more tribal. Other bodies congregate to tantalise and tempt our dancer. By the end its impossible to separate them. They are as one.
Love Cycle OCD does not pussyfoot around. It explodes into your senses and dares you to visit the darkest places in your mind and body. This very contemporary style leaves nothing to the imagination. It’s powerful, honest and primitive. The strength and the control of these dancers are immense and so necessary to this choreography.
This complete and open use of the body enables the dancers to portray such depth of emotion. Anxiety, despair, indecision. I look forward to Love Cycle Chapter Two, also at this years festival.
