Scapino Ballet shows strong and consistently performed work again with The Square 2 ★★★☆☆

You have to dare to surf a bit on the dark, industrial soundscape of the live guitarist Richard van Kruysdijk. With his persistent bass tones (drones), dull drones, thumping samples and long drawn-out down-tempo (ambient), Van Kruysdijk completely determines the dark atmosphere of The Square 2† The annual square-project of Scapino Ballet Rotterdam, successor of twoolsis intended to allow new guest choreographers to experiment in the main hall and to present their (short) works welded together to a large audience.

This edition, three choreographers are slightly inspired by the first part (inferno ) from Dantes Divina Comedy, after an idea by composer Van Kruysdijk. His live music is the starting point. The fifteen-minute journey clearly begins in hell, with a pack of bloodthirsty hellhounds on the way halfway through the video. And in the sign language, used by choreographer Mario Bermúdez Gil, the sign of the Beast returns regularly, with pointed index and little finger.

In the opening of this Spanish choreographer, dancer Lorenzo Cimarelli figures as a lost traveller, sometimes pulling one leg, sometimes seeking rest in a headstand. As he moves further into the darkness he is pounced on by gray skirted dancers, who throw themselves in his arms, push him down and then quietly hop off on their haunches. Do they interpret his devilish demons? Or are they accomplices of Hellevorst Van Kruysdijk? In any case, all motor skills start from angry pounding shoulders.

When the window frames of the stage-wide framework light up blood red, the French choreographer Antonin Comestaz, who works in the Netherlands, sends a smoothly interlocking trio onto the dance floor. While Van Kruysdijk’s soundscape continues to growl like a stationary truck, the dancers pass on undulating impulses to each other with angular arm and leg gestures. What the two black men with mouth caps in this energetic part of the performance do inferno involved remains unclear.

That’s also a bit of the problem with the otherwise strong and consistent execution The Square 2† You are looking for a narrative meaning, because images refer to the symbolism of hell. But the journey remains diffuse and does not reveal itself easily. Does the masked dancer Mischa van Leeuwen, striding on high kothurnen, interpret the mythical ferryman Charon, who transfers shadows of the deceased to the underworld? Or does he save a weakened person from purgatory by poking dancer Ruochen Wang to life with a long stick?

In any case, these closing images of choreography by the Dutch-Surinamese choreographer Ryan Djojokarso have a more hopeful tone. Wang taps the darkness away with a white balloon, to an electronic beat by Van Kruysdijk. It is also swinging a bit, when the surfing ends on a white cloud cover.