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    Dance Preview: Jan Martens Brings Two New Dances to the Wexner Center for the Arts

    For the last five years, Flemish choreographer Jan Martens has been accruing acclaim across Europe for his provocative, physical work. He tries to reconfigure existing idioms and methods to find something new to say about the current state of the world and the current state of a heart with the human body and the universal language of movement. Columbus is lucky to have the Wexner Center bring two of his works to town for the only US stop on this North American tour.

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    Sweat Baby Sweat. Photo by Klaartje Lambrechts.
    Sweat Baby Sweat. Photo by Klaartje Lambrechts.

    Sweat Baby Sweat (2011),  one of his two “love duets,” tells the story of a couple literally fighting with everything they have to hang onto one another. Over music by Jaap Van Kleuen – who has worked with many choreographers including Kalpana Raghuraman, Gisela Rocha, and Canito Suarez – and a Cat Power song, a man and a woman slowly undulate and move around one another’s body. European critic Moos van den Broek called it a “simple, poetic production brimming with emotion.” English writer Lyndsey Winship said it “evokes exactly the clammy-bodied, wide-eyed, post-coital state of exhausted exhilaration, and it shows that all-consuming desire can be difficult and destructive too.”

    Sweat Baby Sweat. Photo by Klaartje Lambrechts.
    Sweat Baby Sweat. Photo by Klaartje Lambrechts.

    Dog Days Are Over (2014) is a more recent group work that draws parallels between different forms of physical exertion. It plays with the aesthetic pleasures of dance, stripping some of them away but emphasizing the joy of watching the human body struggle against its own limitations. For over an hour, the dancers are allayed on a grid, leaping almost as in an aerobic workout but moving through different rhythms, steps, and formations. Els van Steenberghe called it “a breath taking performance that turns you into an embarassed voyeur of voluntary suffering,” and Ben Seibert for the New York Times said, “the lights dimmed and rose, music came and went, but hopping persisted, subsiding momentarily and rebounding as if it were some addiction or some drug-resistant malady.”

    Dog Days Are Over. Photo by Piet Goethals.
    Dog Days Are Over. Photo by Piet Goethals.

    If you have even the slightest interest in contemporary theatre or dance, miss these two dances at your own peril. In a season rife with pleasures, this is a prime example of what the Wexner Center brings to Columbus that no other institution would even consider.

    Sweat Baby Sweat has performances at 8:00pm on October 8 and October 9. For tickets and more info, please visit http://wexarts.org/performing-arts/jan-martens-sweat-baby-sweat. The Dog Days are Over has performances at 2:00pm October 11 and 8:00pm October 12. For tickets and more info, please visit http://wexarts.org/performing-arts/jan-martens-dog-days-are-over.

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    Richard Sanford
    Richard Sanfordhttp://sanfordspeaks.blogspot.com/
    Richard Sanford is a freelance contributor to Columbus Underground covering the city's vibrant theatre scene. You can find him seeking inspiration at a variety of bars, concert halls, performance spaces, museums and galleries.
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