BACCHAE: PRELUDE TO A PURGE AT BAM

BACCHAE: PRELUDE TO A PURGE AT BAM AS PART OF NEXT WAVE FESTIVAL

Marlene Monteiro Freitas -Bacchae is a fun ensemble of trumpet players who also dance and dancers who dance, sing and speak. The performers are intense and have expressions of madness, wearing mask like make up to make them look even more grotesque but do not come much closer to Euripides' tragedy.  Having said that what they are doing here, abstract themes, abstract expressions and incredibly moving movements in their own way are superb.
Its any artist's right to take on classical works and make their own interpretations and incorporate their
own take into it and that way it's fascinating to have some themes and ideas still breathing in their new work.  There are some hints of Euripides Bacchae which still exits in this wonderful dance piece, such as a blind man being led and in a video where a woman give birth which evokes the birth of Dionysus, and the Percussions
and the trumpets have the effects of mayhem and madness and a feeling of revenge.
I loved the music and the way the performers moved and flowed effortlessly with it.

In this Bacchae all rules are broken.  It's free flowing fun and lack of inhibition.  This atmosphere
must be a lot of fun for children as it was proven with a constant laughter of some children in the audience.  The atmosphere is of a festive group of people who can manipulate any one for their own pleasure and creative energy and this troupe has enormous vitality to carry it through.  They run around, up and down, dance, sing and do enormously difficult twists and turns for two hours without an intermission.

For a long while I waited for some more moments of relevance to Euripides's Bacchae but then I gave up and started to enjoy what was presented to me in a twisted but in a joyful way and with that
justification I began to get involved fully like the performers were in this very innovative
and pleasurable dance piece.

REVIEWED
BY
BINA SHARIF
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