Equine extravaganza that canters too slowly
Golgota
Sadler’s Wells, London EC1
It’s not often that you see a total of 26 legs on a dance stage but only three people. Then again, Golgota – which takes its name from the site of the Crucifixion – is a very unusual show indeed.
The three bipeds are French horse-fancying performer Bartabas (who in 2011 raised eyebrows at Sadler’s with his piece The Centaur and the Animal) and flamenco whizz Andrés Marín, along with the droll, diminutive actor William Panza. The other performers are four magnificent horses and a very cute donkey called Lautrec.
Together, this unlikely octet deliver a show inspired by the processions and traditions of Seville’s Holy Week, one that also plunders for its vignettes the art of El Greco and Zurbarán, and, in particular, the latter’s fondness for chiaroscuro.
If you’ve ever found yourself in Andalusia in the run-up to Easter, you will also recognise the tall, pointed
capirote that Bartabas wears on his head for much of the show (even if you’re unlikely previously to have seen one crowned with a burning candle). And you’ll also recall the distinctive cornet that’s deployed here, along with a countertenor and lutenist, in the accompanying renditions of music by Renaissance composer Tomás Luis de Victoria.
Throughout, it’s as if Bartabas and Marín poured all these sources of inspiration into a cauldron, stirred them crazily around, and simply sat back to see what climbed out.
Surreal, equine-tinged variations on Catholic and painterly imagery abound, from the early selfflagellation with a horse’s tail, to the final, very El Greco-esque crucifixion of a Christ with two hooves. Elsewhere, Bartabas sits atop a horse, an incense-- burner in each hand, the sharp light catching smoke either side of him and appearing to give him angel’s wings.
Odd as they are, these impeccably lit tableaux do make an impression of sorts, and certainly one can have nothing but praise for Bartabas’s control of and connection with his equine chums, which is extraordinary. Hands completely off the reins, he has them go in perfect, processional circles, repeatedly “feint” to the ground and get back up, and even calmly disappear, unaccompanied, into the wings. No less impressive, by the way, is the fire and precision of Marín’s dancing, sometimes gently imitative of the horses’ movements, sometimes more traditionally flamenco in the rat-a-tattat zapateado of his footwork.
What is, however, in short supply is an all-important sense of momentum – despite the show’s modest 75-minute length, there was much restless shifting in seats on opening night. You may also tire of the almost uniformly precious aesthetic and especially of the music, which – with all respect to the venerable de Victoria and the expert trio of musicians – does rather drone on.
All in all, then, a show conceived and executed with love and imagination, but one that’s also very niche, considerably less than its parts, and too often a bit of a yawn.
A neigh rather than a yeah, I’m afraid. Until March 21. Tickets: 0844 412 4300; sadlerswells.com