You don’t get many non-narrative meditations so This Is The Land has that going for it
“They’re just waiting…”
Most reveals on the VAULT Festival this yr have opted towards printed programmes and gone for QR codes, an incredible sustainable alternative. Ironically for a present about our shifting relationship with the land, This Is The Land has an data sheet on each seat – you quickly realise why RedRoom Theatre has gone for this. Devised as a non-narrative, multidisciplinary meditation on that topic, it hews rather a lot nearer to dwell artwork than theatre.
It is undoubtedly a challengingly ephemeral work, abstruse in its unfolding, but when launched from the expectations of standard theatre, it possesses its personal distinctive vitality. Impressionistic and emotive, sweeping up to date motion allies with multi-tracked soundscapes, hauntingly looped vocals mesh with poetic musings, a charged ambiance is cultivated and we’re left to take from it what we want.
Directed by Mary Steadman and devised in artistic collaboration with Xavier De Santos, Leeza Jessie, Alice Barton, Sofia Vélez, and Samuel De La Torre, plus John Baggott’s musical contributions, the programme notes discuss of a seasonal cycle all through the present, its 5 figures embodying the Celtic spirit of the Trickster and as polyphonic aural collages are constructed in entrance us and fleeting moments of whirling physicality rush by, there are moments of true grace.
At the identical time, the devised nature of This Is The Land does imply that that polyphony can typically lean in direction of disjointed dissonance. As it leans over the hour, emotions of randomness do begin to creep in as you marvel if a bit extra construction may work versus a narrative about nibbly-nobbly ice-cream however as it is a present through which somebody is as more likely to produce a potato from their pocket as a bit of paper, perhaps you simply gotta roll with the random. Definitely not for everybody however a daring little bit of programming for the endlessly shocking VAULT Festival.