There Are A Thousand Ways To Kneel And Kiss The Ground

A bed, a body covered in a fire-black veil, a single rose, long-stemmed, green-leaved in a slim vase at the foot. The dancer-poet wakes, statuesque as a Greek goddess, the fine drapery of the veil cradling her finely-featured body like the caress of shadowlight. She rises, bathed in exquisite light, part of a luminous narrative devised by visionary Graeme Reid, and dances, sings, whirls, shares poetry, then returns, as statuesque as ever to a veiled sleep.There is a a subtle understated beauty to this show which is hard to capture in words. Helen Fost of Temenos Theatre who created and presents this piece does it particularly well in the moments of Sufi whirling she incorporates into the show. Her spoken word presentation of the words of Rilke and Rumi in Butoh-inspired dance is less convincing. The movements are less fluid, and the vocal phrases lack a sense of line. While stage-whispered text came across clearly, there was less resonance in more quietly-spoken voiced lines, which created a temporary barrier to perception it would have been nice for the audience not to have to try to surmount. The title of the show was curious in relation to the work presented – for only once did Fost choose to make contact with the floor with any part of her body apart from the souls of her feet, and most of the time, the thrust of the action was outwards and upwards – any direction but down.The soundtrack is drawn mainly from the works of Arvo Pärt, although his tribute to Britten which would have fitted perfectly into the overarching theme of the work was surprisingly not used. The song by Sarah McLachlan worked less well by comparison.While the performance had moments of great depth, they were not carried through across the extensive periods between them, and while the dance has the inherent potential to reach much further across the footlights, it was the magnificent lighting which ultimately lifted this show beyond a 3-star level to do the job the performer should have been able to do unaided.