Captivating kaleidoscope

When Philippe Decouflé first introduced the idea of sheer fun into the deadly serious business of postmodern dance-making, sceptics predicted that his comic strip and animated movie-like ideas would soon start to wear off. Almost 30 years later, his stuff is still as provocatively entertaining, and his work holds a special place in the history of choreography.

Panorama is a cleverly woven look at some of his past and much-acclaimed creations. Yet the performance has very little in common with trendy, pompously celebratory and unbearably lifeless choreographic retrospectives. Structured as a sort of music-hall review and compèred like one by the most unlikely of MCs, Panoroma is a kaleidoscope of choreographic and theatrical ideas that amuse, intrigue and captivate. True, nothing is terribly new, but it is the sparklingly humorous and tongue-in cheek way everything is presented that makes the evening flow and take off. Viewers are transported to a fantasy world where the quirkiness of a hilarious shadow play and of a dance-free rendition of ‘Hernando’s Hideaway’ combine with moments of lyrical inventiveness, as in the case of a splendid spiralling solo.