Annotation:
Imagine a world where you can't progress despite your best efforts to push forward. Award winning contemporary dance company VerTeDance have created a beautifully poignant piece about our lack of freedom, reclusion and our power to make decisions. The cast weaves around their own shadows whilst a live modern minimalist soundtrack by Clarinet Factory builds a fluid tension.
Reflexes, slants and curvatures; pushing off, tipping and falling – every imbalance is corrected and brought back to equilibrium. With theatrics, choreographic moments and subtle humor, Correction shows that the attainment of freedom often goes hand in hand with loss. But above all, it shows that lack of freedom to decide can also result in comfort, relief, familiarity and devotion – even happiness.
At the festival CZECH DANCE PLATFORM 2014 CORRECTION won the Dance Piece of the Year Award and Katarína Ďuricová won the Light Design Award for it. Three of the seven dancers were nominated for Dancer of the Year Award. The jury also singled out Clarinet Factory for honourable mention and CORRECTION came in second place in the Audience Award voting.
Review:
„Each detail, each tiny gag provokes a reaction from the public. This is conceptual arts in an exceptionally communicative form... The experimental torture Jiří Havelka has put the seven dancers through is coherent with trends that currently thrive on European scenes."(Nina Vangeli, Divadelní noviny, 3. 3. 2014)
"This is innovation with a true purpose, performed at a pitch of nuanced prowess that is magnificent." ***** (Mary Brennan, Herald Scotland)
„Edinburgh Fringe 2015 dance: Best performances from Sylvie Guillem to Correction."
(Zoë Anderson, The Independent)
"A truly elevating piece of dance-theatre, in every way, that might even change the way you see the world." *****
(Duska Radosavljevic, Exeunt magazine)
"A perfect portrayal of humanity..."
(Stuart Wilson, Edinburgh Fringe Reviews)
"Rich and vivid, full of humour and urban elegance."
(Lucy Ribchester, Fest Magazine)
"A beautiful exploration of human nature: highly recommended!" *****
(Araceli Segreto Trombetta, Edinburgh Festivals Magazine)
"Perhaps the most riveting performance at this year's fringe features seven dancers who never move their feet. Correction begins with seven people standing still in a line across the stage. Four musicians sit behind them wearing black. The rest of the theatre is empty with the exception of a pair of shoes on the far left side. Anything more would clutter the magnetic virtuosity that follows.
First with simple glances, then inching to increasingly complex movements, Correction trusts deeply in its simple concept: seven dancers in a line wearing shoes bound to the floor. The performance, by the Czech company VerTeDance, studies the nature of creativity built from restriction. By having their feet essentially nailed to the floor, the dancers explore a wide range of movement that appears nothing short of magical.
The choreography, by the dancers: Veronika Knytlová, Tereza Ondrová, Martina Hajdyla Lacová, Karolína Hejnová, Robo Nižník, Jaro Ondruš, and Pet rOpavský, with direction by Jiří Havelka, explores patterns, curiosities of physics, personal (often humorous) relationships, fear and combativeness, and somehow reaches inside the darkness of the human psyche, then seamlessly shifts into comic bits including one with a banana.
The dancers are as extraordinary in their technical skill as they are in their vivid, personal connection to the material. Before long, each dancer has a distinct personality, and they find tremendous joy playing with subtle variations on simple concepts like leaning, poking, falling, or running (without moving their feet of course). The choreography manages to remain somehow simultaneously ordinary and transcendent. It is this careful duality that allows one to experience the piece on a theatrical, human level, and on a complex choreographic scale of expertly crafted theme and variation. I can imagine dancers, acrobats, theatre lovers, children, farmers, runners, and even people who don't like dance finding something to love in Correction.
But let me not forget those four musicians sitting in the back wearing black. The score, mostly clarinet blended with atmos-pheric vocals, shapes the open space with ease and panache. I could have sat spellbound only listening to their music, but the blend of the musicians and dancers together generate consistent moments of pure bliss. They never do too much... until the moment is right, then they go wild."
(Ezra LeBank, Total Theatre Magazine)
