Dara Milovanovic
IF YOU have a craving for edgy, postmodern art that challenges your ideas of dance, art, gender, and age then Lia Haraki’s latest presentation could satisfy you. Two solos, one performed by a woman and another by a man, are performed in the same night to provoke two different sensations, moods, and intellectual provocations.
Eye to I will also feature a solo ‘Niedich’ by Antonio Montanile, an Italian choreographer. Like Haraki, Montanile has already performed his piece at a number of important European festivals and will continue his tour after his performances in Cyprus. ‘Niedich’ plays with ideas of communication – the desperation of searching for words to express oneself, turning to the body and emotions instead. In the solo he explores expectations of stage settings and choreography.
Since returning to Cyprus three years ago, Haraki has formed Omada Pelma with Christodoulos Panayiotou. In January she presented Soundproof, a full-length work with six professional dancers and three musicians, that explored the voice as part of body and character development. She drew inspiration from Soundproof to create the solo Eye to I.
Haraki premiered Eye to I in March at this year’s Contemporary Dance Platform and received an honorable mention. More importantly, she received an invitation to the prestigious Kalamata festival, where she was received with praise. She has also performed the piece in Amsterdam.
Eye to I is rough, raw and perhaps more genuine than Haraki’s earlier works. Haraki, who is a riveting performer due to her apparent vulnerability despite her impressive, skilled physique, makes this piece look extreme in its physicality, emotionality, and psychology, making you want to see the piece on other performers to have the chance to study the actual choreography.
Eye to I takes her through seven different states, exploring masculinity, femininity and dynamics in movement and voice. She begins the piece dressed in pants and combat boots and executes stereotypical adolescent male poses. Her journey takes on a psychotic feel as she seems bound and restricted by the shrug she wears, using it to distort her body and create sculptural images. She accompanies the movement with vocal interjections that propel the image of a possessed human being.
She transitions from one form to the next abruptly. Using costumes as props, which are discarded to transform her body, look and texture of movement. As she takes her boots and socks off she begins walking in a geometrical pattern, giving herself instructions such as “jump, turn, side.” She changes dynamics in her voice and adds sounds and speed to increase the emotional impact. Haraki wears a pair of wedge shoes and performs an exaggerated feminine walk that she seem almost uncomfortable in, consequently creating gender confusion. She proceeds to fling one shoe off and perform the one-show limp in her underwear. The aggressive, loose movement is a total antithesis to the image conjured up of women in high heels. Still this is the part that proves Haraki as a dancer and one you’ve been waiting for the last fifteen minutes.
She moves from one physical and emotional character to the next hastily abandoning the previous one in an almost childish manner, seemingly losing all interest in it in much the same way as in everyday life we abandon one thing to move on to the next. She completes the piece with a monologue, playing with words such as “I, me, myself, tell” and finally clarifies the idea she has been working on throughout the work.
Eye to I. September 22, 23 and 24 at Technochoros Ethal in Limassol (Tel: 25 877827) and September 27, 28, and 29 at Agora Ayiou Andrea (Tel: 22 772395) theatre in Nicosia. All performances start at 8.30pm. Tickets £7 from the theatres
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