The Deer House
Opening Night: October 5, 2010
Closing: October 9, 2010
Theater: BAM Harvey Theater
Part of the 2010 New Wave Festival US Premiere The death of a Needcompany member’s brother, journalist Kerem L., who was killed while covering the war in Kosovo, is the factual seed from which springs this wildly imaginative performance work. The third installment of Sad Face/Happy Face, visionary Belgian-Flemish director Jan Lauwers’ trilogy on human nature (the first, Isabella’s Room, played in the 2004 Next Wave Festival; the second is The Lobster Shop), centers around a group of international performers and artists increasingly faced with the harsh reality of the world they travel with their productions. Settings shift between the modern (a spare rehearsal space in which company members prepare for a performance) and the primeval (a fairy tale-like dwelling where a family of Kosovan deer breeders make a living selling antlers), while the plot incorporates both fact (the company member’s personal tragedy) and fiction (the family in the deer house experiences a similar violent death). Throughout, and despite its myriad theatrical embellishments–which include copious nudity, outlandish costumes, and an interdisciplinary approach that combines music, dance, and drama–The Deer House remains rooted in an emotional authenticity, woven together by themes of grief and renewal. In French and English with English titles
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October 7, 2010
Death and grief and spiritual renewal, the brutality of war and the moral responsibility of those who bear witness to it: mighty themes are chewed over exhaustively in “The Deer House,” a dance-theater work from Jan Lauwers and the Brussels-based Needcompany. The piece is making its American premiere as part of the Next Wave Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
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October 6, 2010
The last time Belgium’s Jan Lauwers and his Needcompany were in town, it was six years ago with the remarkable "Isabella’s Room." This visually beautiful, deeply moving evocation of grief and remembrance was very different from the group’s 2001 offering: a hyper-violent, nearly incomprehensible "King Lear" that prompted large swaths of enraged theatergoers to run for the exit. I found both shows very effective in their own ways, and certainly memorable. Unfortunately, "The Deer House," which opened a brief run at BAM on Tuesday, is far from these heights.
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October 6, 2010
It’s always nice when the Brooklyn Academy of Music has both its spaces buzzing, but rarely do we find much synergy between their programming choices. And yet this week, with Pina Bausch’s Tanztheater Wuppertal tearing up the Howard Gilman Opera House in Vollmond and Needcompany’s heartily weird The Deer House inhabiting the smaller Harvey, the two shows make a miniseason of their own. In just this pair of performances (both run through October 9), interested viewers can get an education in dance-theater. Pina Bausch’s expressionist riot reminds us of the genre’s Wuppertal origins; Jan Lauwers’s arch, intentionally deflating construction illustrates its developing trends. If you can only see one, I would send you to the nearly three-hour Vollmond—the 2006 creation that lashes the company with an onstage rainstorm.
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