Giannandrea Poesio

Stunted growth

Eonnagata <br /> Sadler’s Wells Theatre Twelfth Floor <br /> Queen Elizabeth Hall

issue 14 March 2009

Eonnagata
Sadler’s Wells Theatre

Twelfth Floor
Queen Elizabeth Hall

Has dance-theatre given up the ghost? Judging by the two performances I saw last week, Eonnagata and The Twelfth Floor, it would appear so. Not surprisingly, one may add, given that, after more than two decades, the provocative, elusive, multilayered, postmodern genre has exhausted any chance to renew itself. Yet I am not sure whether Eonnagata would have made a different impact 15 or so years ago. Its flimsy narrative, which draws upon the mysterious life and the ever more mysterious gender of the Chevalier d’Eon, is as lame today as it would have been in the Eighties. At least in the heyday of dance-theatre, issues of gender, transgender and sexuality would have been addressed more boldly. Here, everything is tamer and more sanitised than in family shows such as Victor/Victoria or La Cage aux Folles.

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