Dogtroep kick off their performances at Arts Alive tomorrow night. Neil Wallace gives an idea of what to expect
HOLLAND’S Dogtroep, a group of performers, musicians, sculptors and technicians specialising in bizarre performance events, work both indoors and out. The snow spectacle commissioned for the 1992 Winter Olympics confirmed them as one of Europe’s most imaginitive mixed discipline ensembles. On the strength of a recent piece, Northwestern Waltz — for Amsterdam’s Ij Festival, staged in an abandoned shipyard — they’re probably the bravest.
After a short ferry ride to this maritime wasteland, the spectators were led to a seating bank in the basin of a vast dry dock. They faced lock gates, some 50m wide, holding back the entire North Sea. The dock walls formed an arena which was uniqely industrial, but like a Greek amphitheatre, both intimidating and intimate. In fact, Dogtroep’s absurdist tragi-comedy had classical connotations: its hinge was a clash between natural and temporal forces. The difficult experiences of the Subotica National Theatre’s Lubisja Ristic, who co-directed, and whose work in Yugoslavia has been shaped by a war, brought a metaphorical weight to the piece.
If the supernatural but invisible presence of the sea represented destiny, political power was portrayed by a typical Dogtroep crazy — a gross dictator/tycoon holding sway over two servile beings making bread on bonfires in the dock below, and who suffered the apopleptic rages he delivered from his bike. Attempts at rescue (insurrection? joining the fun?) were made by a character on a futile bike charge, and by musicians sailing in a boat from the seaward side.
Then came the leveller: seawater entered the arena — 1,2-million litres of it in 17 minutes — turning the denouement into a nightmarish, foaming marathon for swimming performers. It was tense, beautiful, awe-inspiring. Was this The End? Not quite: redemption came in a baby lifeboat launched by a bag-lady mutant on a crane; finally an actor, apparently wading but actually on a submerged bicycle, rode on to dry land, into the night, in a comic but stoical closing image.
A car careering between the seats into the water; a 20m column of flame blasted skywards; these were details in a production which felt like a brilliant 3-D dream conceived by Sophocles, directed by Peter Greenaway and designed by Jean Tinguely. Unforgettable. If you need an excuse to venture out this weekend, Dogtroep could be it.
Dogtroep performs at the Newtown Silos this week and next. See listings