…A big Persian carpet in the middle…another smaller one in a Turkish style …one more Colored Vintage…a mid sized carpet with octagonal ornament…. a mat without fringe….a rug, consisting of geometric figures in dull colours…
Carpet by carpet, Son and Father create a collage on the floor, carefully filling up the gaps between those pieces, not matching to each other. Last but not least, there comes a miniature rug, accomplishing the perfect design.
Straight from the beginning Martin Nachbar’s ”REPEATER” wins the audience’s favour with such figurative and comical action.
”REPEATER” is a duet for the son and the father, in which the choreographer Martin Nachbar invites his father Klaus Nachbar to make a dance piece together.
Working in the contemporary art, full of sophisticated conceptual ideas, Martin Nachbar creates his piece ”REPEATER” with the easiest task from basic theatre improvisational exersices – ”watch and repeat”.
The son invites the father, through kinship of movement, to imitate, learn and reapeat his physical pattern and improvisation scores.
Indoubtly, Father is the main character in this duet. Adventurously he assumes the role of repeater by abandoning own role of being a father as a mentor. Concretely and abstractly mirroring the movement patterns of his son, now Father is the one who follows. And in the wider scense, it seems, that Father’s task to repeat mirrors the whole process of formation of Son’s personality. The process, in which by coping certain models of behavior around, mainly, from the family circle, the one acquires the knowledge about the world he is obliged to live in.
There comes another comical and skilfully choreographed action, which creates exeptionally colourable football game on the stage; Father leads the ball, Son takes the ball over, Father performs a trick and scores a goal, Son concedes a ball and gets upset, Father joys… The ball is imaginary but the exitement is so intense!
”REPEATER” is a duet for the son and the father, but it does not create a narrative family saga on the stage. With the appreciable warmth, present in the air, the performers immerse the audience into ongoing flow of images. These images compose a somewhat different idea of a dialog between the son and the father: a way of communicating, ability of hearing and listening.
Maria Prokhorova
Writer is a dancer who tries out different ways of viewing and reviewing dance.
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REPEATER
Choreography: Martin Nachbar
Performers: Klaus Nachbar, Martin Nachbar
Artistic Collaboration: Jeroen Peeters
Scenography: Bettina Darmawan
Light design: Bruno Pocheron
Sound design: Boris Hauf
Premier (Helsinki): 5.2.2014, Side Step Festival, Kaapelitehdas
