Nostos is the first of this autumn’s Adventures in Film from Matthew Bourne’s company New Adventures in collaboration with TEA films.
Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩
Adventures in Film comprises three short movies made this year by female choreographers from the Adventures in Motion Pictures dance company with the brief to ‘tell a story’. Matthew Bourne says of the project: “whilst we are unable to make work on stage, we have seen the power that film possesses, a means for people to connect, be inspired and thoroughly experience the joys of dance, whilst TEA films have a passion for creative storytelling through film and the Adventures in Film project hits that sweet spot perfectly.”
Filmed in the warehouse space at London’s Buckle Factory, Tasha Chu’s film Nostos (‘Homecoming’) focuses on a young couple who are separated and then reunited in very different times. It was created in a social bubble with dancers and choreographer with guidance from Matthew Bourne and Etta Murfitt (AMP associate artist director) and is Chu’s first piece of choreography for film.
The strapline of the film is ‘The war is over. Will they find peace?’ and music is by Chelsea McGough and inalbis. The viewer catches a brief glimpse of the couple (Seren Williams and Mark Samaras) in more comfortable times and footage of their relationship plays on the walls and windows in the empty rooms they dance in. The dancers reveal their anguish in their passionate movement and the lighting is beautiful. In daylight they meet again, and the editing is precise between inner and outer locations. The chronology is left for the viewer to determine.
Watching this piece on a small screen was great. It packs a lot into a running time of less than eight minutes. It would also work well in an art gallery…
Clare Walters
SHARE THIS POST:
Comments are closed.