Shobana Jeyasinghe’s Dance: Wee Caliban Review – It’s hard to define a post-colonial look at The Tempest | Dance

CChoreographer Shobana Jeyasinghe originally moved to the UK in the early 1980s to study Shakespeare, so it’s safe to say she engaged deeply with the playwright. It is a pity, then, that her final work, We Caliban, inspired by The Tempest, was unable to convey her rich ideas about this key character. We begin with a letter from Elizabeth I to Walter Raleigh from 1584, granting him license to invade and conquer foreign lands, and then maps of the Caribbean islands, their original names crossed out and replaced with those of Anguilla, Grenada and Barbuda. Jeyasinghe’s postcolonial view of the text is clear, as the conqueror Prospero forces the native Caliban into slavery. But after proving this on stage, the idea dissipates into something more impressionistic, and the conceptual direction is lost. We are transported into a story and then left stranded, like the Duke of Milan and his daughter on a remote island.

Jiyasingh’s dancing is always good. Her background is in the Indian classical form of Bharatanatyam, blended with contemporary Western dance, and she has a classical sense of proportion and precision, and a keen sense (no pun intended) of angle and line. Personality is not a concern – the dancers are not “acting” as such – and the effect is flat. Prospero, with his writers and staff, controls in a somewhat benign manner. Caliban becomes more interesting. Dancer Raul Reynoso Akanda (formerly Cuban member of Acosta Danza) has two main duets: the first with Miranda, where there is resistance, or resentment, perhaps, but also a connection between them that leads to tenderness. Then, after the colonists leave, a second mysterious duo is created (with an unnamed woman, a native of the island). This person is exquisite and cautious, the two are fascinated, but wary and far apart – their fingers only touch in a long extended position. They look at the audience rather than each other, but they seem to have some sort of mutual understanding. What’s going on here? The repercussions, perhaps trying to rebuild yourself when you’ve been stripped of who you originally were? Caliban is now trying to figure out how to be himself, how to live, and how to trust?

Thierry Picot’s music is an unpredictable mixture of melodies, textures, sounds and silences, which never lets you rest; Suitable for work that is frustratingly difficult to handle.