Shock treatment strong and vibrant

Betroffenheit: A Kidd Pivot, Electric Company Theatre production

St James Theatre, March 3 Reviewed by Ann Hunt

Betroffenheit is an intense, award-winning production from Canada that is giving the final performances of its last world tour, as part of the New Zealand Festival.

There is no English equivalent for the word ‘‘betroffenheit’’, which describes the state of shock or grief after a traumatic event.

Crystal Pite and Jonathon Young are the creators of this dancetheatre work. Pite is the choreographer, co-creator and director. Young is co-creator, writer and performer.

But it was Young’s personal tragedy – the deaths of his 14-year-old only daughter, his niece and nephew in a fire – that became the engine for this production.

Young plays the protagonist in the work with great intensity, alongside five extraordinary dancers. But it is not just his personal story that is explored. Post-traumatic stress disorder, grief, addiction and despair are also examined, as well as healing and support.

It is the creators’ intention that the work does not wallow in selfpity and can relate on a universal as well as a personal front. The success of these intentions would be considerably greater had the work been shorter.

Given its subject matter, and the necessarily obsessive elements of writing, at 100 minutes, it demands a great deal of an audience, particularly in the first half. It opens in ‘‘the room’’. This bare, white-walled space, where long snake-like cables crawl horribly along the floor and up the walls, is both safe house and prison.

Characters enter, embodying the voices in the protagonist’s mind, as well as those of his counsellor and colleagues. These are obsessional, repetitive.

An underlying message of the show is how hard it is to ‘‘get through’’, to banish the demons that haunt a person. Pike’s choreography is inventive and requires great unity from her dancers, which she gets in spades. Their ensemble work is superb.

Jermaine Spivey is absolutely beautiful. This mesmerically fluid dancer captures our attention whenever he is on stage.

In the first half, David Raymond’s strength and charisma is outstanding, as are Tiffany Tregarthen’s daddy long legs-like movements and her imp-cumdevilish face.

There is a complete change of style and pace in the second half. This is much more abstracted contemporary dance, which lets the different strengths of Christopher Hernandez and Cindy Salgado shine.

Production standards are extremely high, with intensely visceral sound from Owen Belton, Alessandro Juliani and Meg Roe; stark, sophisticated sets by Jay Gower Taylor; brilliant lighting by Tom Visser; and eclectically vibrant costumes from Nancy Bryant.

Spivey’s final solo is filled with hope, albeit with the knowledge this journey, and work, is not over.