Mortal Heroes
ZfinMalta's Mortal Heroes is a visceral if confusing exploration of human connection — demanding patience but rewarding in its pas de deuxs and atmospheric lighting.
The excellent ZfinMalta national Dance Company had a hard act to follow after the huge triumph of NACAR last week. They offered us an interesting if confusing work.
German choreographer Sita Ostheimar has worked with the Hofesh Shecter Company in London and the Paris Opera Ballet. She describes her work as follows: "the strong physicality of her creations generates a deep connection with each performer's mental state and emotional inner world." The connection with the audience is perhaps less prioritized.
Mortal Heroes is a difficult work to get to grips with, and the creatives' description doesn't help. We are told it is a "visceral exploration of human potential—an odyssey through chaos and love, shadow and light, fragility and force" which "creates an atmosphere both intimate and vast....tense yet alive...delicate yet explosive, aggressive yet tender."
This can be confusing, but at base would seem to be an exploration of human interactions, a strange repetition of attractions and rejections, where "the heroic lies not in perfection, but in vulnerability, courage, and the will to continue." After 50 minutes you just about get it, there are a lot of repeated interactions and movements, to Andrea Casalis's throbbing music.
The intention is perhaps clearest in the occasional pas de deuxs, such as a well executed one between Andrea Biagioni and Mario Manara, and another between Andrea and one of the women — it was hard to make out exactly who with the low lighting.
Indeed the "immersive lighting" by British designer Barnaby Booth plays a big part in this piece. The close collaboration over some years between him and Sita becomes clear. There are dramatic darknesses when the dancers rearrange themselves to surprise us when the lights come back on. But generally the lighting is very soft and adds to the confusing world in which the performers seem trapped to repeat their relationship failures, but somehow keep going.
Holly Knowles' costumes were also hard to get. Loose, flowing, blousy, it was hard to be sure what they were saying, even after 50 minutes. But then again, perhaps that was the point.