Neon Dance in Puzzle Creature, Cornerstone Arts Centre Didcot 23rd October 2019 – Jenny Parrott reports

A huge inflated plastic bubble fills the theatre space, we remove our shoes and are ushered in 8 at a time, told to stand, sit or move around as we please (but like most audiences, don’t budge once we decide to sit!).  The bubble is constantly being filled with air and we must enter quickly so the entrance can be zipped shut again to avoid too much deflation.

Once inside the audience huddle in small groups on the floor.  There is an air of anticipation and curiosity. Throughout the space hang white mesh sculptures moulded into the shape of body parts.  These ghost images bob up and down in the space as the air level fluctuates and the final members of the audience are let in.  Three dancers enter with them and begin to walk about the space. They appear human but there is something very alien about them at the same time.  A soundtrack with a voice begins, and the dancers are signing the words, the voice repeats itself ‘we have decided not to die’.

 

A Storyteller’s Inadequacy – Eva Kotátková at Modern Art Oxford 30th November 2013 – 2nd February 2014

Modern Art Oxford presents the first UK solo exhibition of Eva Kotátková’s varied conceptual work featuring the most prolific performance based works to date.  Local independent dancers Marina Collard, Paulette Mae and Jane Connelly are among a shifting team of performers in A Storyteller’s Inadequacy in which the artist proposes a playful and awkward relationship between performance, object, sculpture and installation.   A giant speech organ commands the space of the Upper Gallery, creating a  playground, gym, theatre and circus mixed environment for a group of performers to enact poses and temporary body constellations; they interact with an eclectic range of objects in an exploration of the possibilities as well as the limits and barriers in human communication and interaction.