"Federico García Lorca was a folk poet, though in the unsentimental sense of the word. ...He has become best known as a dramatist, and only few people are aware of the explosive force of his verses, in which he struggles with the transitoriness of life. Daniel Goldin has ventured on a poetic experiment, placing Lorca's full-blooded lyrics at the centre of a fiery temptation of fate and so creating a work that is as powerful in word as in visual image. The premiere of 'Black Angels' becomes a celebration of a lost age - bursting with nostalgic melancholy, moving desolation and political anger.Goldin's splendid tri-disciplinary project brings together dancers, singers and actors. His body artists come together to dance in a seductive salon ambience of red velvet, chandeliers and candlelight, settees and old-style radios. The gentlemen in elegant double-breasted suits create, right down to their fingertips, subtle figures of playful lightness and despondent yearning, repeatedly buzz around the radiant Annarita Pasculli, the lady with the fan who forms the erotically pulsating centre point - courtship rituals and a dance of death, organically interwoven. This action takes place to the accompaniment of Ekkehard Freye, intoning with dignified verve Lorca's poems, mostly taken from his cycles "Poema del Cante Jondo" and "Romancero gitano". Soprana Suzanne McLeod sings traditional Spanish songs with transparent lustre, to the piano accompaniment of Wolfgang Wiechert. A "gesamtkunstwerk" that seemingly effortlessly spans the arc from the bitter puppet-theatre mockery against the murderous Guardia Civil, to the ode to Lorca's friend Salvador Dali and the romantic petal showers of Andalusian provenance. Towards the end, Goldin has extracts read from Lorca's "Charla sobre teatro", which calls for social action on the stage. An ironic self-questioning, subsumed into a delightful homage to Spain's arguably greatest poet."
Patrick Wildermann, Münstersche Zeitung, 17 June 2002
"In the second part, the performance, painted in severe dark tones throughout, takes on greater movement...,becomes more energetic and evocative....Now, Münster's Argentinian dance director Goldin also allows the increasingly political texts of Garcia Lorca a theatrical, dancing environment in which they grow and develop a bizarre, explosive force. Where the male group at first only listened attentively, they now suddenly mirror the texts and songs ... with synchronised movements that ironically underscore García Lorca's statements. They crowd in on the speaker...They put on a dumb show with hand puppets, pouring scorn and mockery on the Guardia Civil, whom Garcia Lorca so much despised. And when they take their seats in the front row of Münster's Small Theatre and listen to García Lorca's "Charla sobre teatro" - which when spoken by Freye sounds not as if it was written in 1935 but today - the scene is refreshingly lively: Not like an awed revival of the past, but like holding up a mirror to the present and telling of the continuing relevance of a poet who was murdered in 1936 by Spain's Fascists because they hated a free spirit like him."
Jochen Schmidt, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 21 June 2002
"Around the poems, Daniel Goldin has constructed a collage of song and expressive dance. Actor Ekkehard Freye recites verses on fate, death and unrequited love...Dancer Annarita Pasculli and her five male colleagues then transform the literary pictures into stage ones. The attractive group choreography is one of the strengths of the performance. In his stage setting, Goldin stays in the times of García Lorca... We see an artist's salon in Madrid... Details from the life of García Lorca are alluded to, for example his friendship with film director Luis Bunuel and painter Salvador Dalí. Goldin powerfully presents the poet's, who was executed by Franco's henchmen in 1936 during the Spanish Civil War. In halting words, Freye describes how the Guardia Civil storm a gypsy settlement. The dancers freeze and cover their heads - right-thinking Spain is ashamed. And the last resort of the defeated is irony: The torture scenes in the police barracks turn into puppet theatre, with the foppish police lieutenant logically appearing as a hand puppet."
Jörn Funke, Westfälischer Anzeiger, 17 June 2002
"Death as part of life: 'When I die, leave the balcony open.' The audience listens with bated breath to the impressively recited poems of Lorca...In his 'Black Angels' project, choreographer and stage director Daniel Goldin ambitiously combines recitation, singing and dance. He abducts the spectators into Lorca's world, into realms of yearning and melancholy.... Spanish folklore and processional chants are sung by McLeod with a timbre that is far removed from bombast and kitsch. Nor do the dancers fall into worn-out clichés: Elements of Spanish folklore are hinted at, but for the most part the choreography follows its own expression, picking up the melody of the lyrics and creating atmosphere... It is an evening of impressive performers, and holds the audience captive."
Petra Faryn, Die Glocke, 19 June 2002
"(The dancers) listen to the poems of Lorca, verses full of forebodings of death and the joy of life, of gypsies and toreros in an archaic Andalusia, with summer nights full of stars and sultriness. Ekkehard Freye speaks them with clear articulation and an almost youthful freshness, with sufficient distance from the pathos the verses could have suggested... Then Annarita Pasculli dances, the only woman among all the men: She spreads her arms as if they were wings, turns slowly, pulls up her shoulders and prances with inclined head like an Andalusian horse. Every now and again, her fan strikes like a weapon. The men imitate copy her measured tempo, sway their bodies, seem to pluck imaginary blossoms. Their movements flow slowly, gallant bows end in restrained momentum."
Basil Nikitakis, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 18 June 2002
"Flamenco and fandango are occasionally "cited" by the dancers and the singer with foot stamping, hand clapping, castanets and typical poses. However, an evening of folklore is the last thing Goldin is aiming for. In his latest artist's "portrait", he has found a good way to show the diversity of García Lorca's artistry by combining dance with music theatre and drama."
Marieluise Jeitschko, Neue Westfälische, 26 June 2002
"The bullets of the Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War ended the life of the poet, musician and painter Federico Garcia Lorca, who saw himself as an apolitical man but through his criticism of the brutally inhumane society himself became a victim of political forces. Daniel Goldin's Lorca evening "Black Angels" in the Small House of Münster City Theatre begins with the sombre rituals of the mourning lady (Annarita Pasculli) and the executioner.... Sadness, fear of death and longing for fulfilment in love are the dominant themes in Lorca's poetry. Most of his women, both in the tragedies and the comedies, are 'black angels'... Annarita Pasculli embodies them all with eerie calm and a deadly serious elegance - an angel of death in many manifestations."
Marieluise Jeitschko, Westfälische Nachrichten, 17 June 2002
"Daniel Goldin creates a weave of music, speech, dance and song. Actor Ekkehard Freye recites from poems of Lorca, perhaps as the poet recited them himself in the cafés. Soprano Suzanne McLeod intones old Spanish folksongs, which Lorca the musician had himself arranged. And five male dancers and one female dancer tell of García Lorca's world with their bodies...It is good that Goldin and Freye have avoided all unnecessary pathos. The poems are spoken sensitively and with feeling...Spanish blood also flows in the folksongs, some of them very ancient. Suzanne McLeod breathes life into them, with versatility and expressiveness... Daniel Goldin can present a mature and versatile dance ensemble. The solo, pas de deux and ensemble scenes are sometimes suffering, sometimes funny, sometimes even grotesque. Elements of traditional Spanish dances keep appearing in the choreography. All the actors of the evening are on the stage together for two full hours, dark-dressed and elegant. The men in suits, the women in dresses to match the period. They are all 'Black Angels'. Black as night, as sorrow, as suffering. Angels because they are given wings by their art, they are messengers, saviours and redeemers... So the evening has a somewhat dark and measured character, with something of the depth of Andalusian night, the redness of blood and the heaviness of wine, but it also tells of love, of hope of redemption, and not least of belief in a Spain between tradition and modernity. It is an evening to submerge in and enjoy to the full, an absolute treat."
Nina Wittemer, WDR 3, Resonanzen, 17 June 2002