Felled by pain – Daniel Goldin’s fantastic new work on yearning and loneliness
“[…] It turned into an evening in which masked and unmasked persons wove a labyrinth of yearnings through their dance movements. Following the tracks of the music, physical approaches turned into breathless questions. Individuals became movements, trembling through the space like escalating sinus curves. Some of the figures allowed themselves to be felled by pain like a tree. Window shutters closed like coffin lids. […] The light shed the warm glow of an evening sun or evoked a corpse-like pallor in the room, seeming to cause the hesitation and creeping movements of the figures to freeze. In Goldin’ s work, humans are turned into marionettes whose foundationless existence hangs from the silk thread of bewildering and bewildered and irritated feelings. A feast of dance and music.”
Günter Moseler, Münstersche Zeitung, 3 December 2007
“The best moment of this dance evening? Probably when Wilson Mosquera Suarez, one of seven formidable dances faced with an equally formidable demands, moves the across the stage with grand gestures to music that is nothing short of light-hearted. Like a marionette just released from captivity […] In changing constellations, seven figures fill the space created for them by Matthias Dietrich: an old manorial house, at whose brown walls the tooth of time is gnawing. Sometimes warm sunlight floods through the high doors, at other times, lamps have to bring light into the nocturnal mood (lighting: Reinhard Hubert). And at all times, the melancholy music sounds and the waves roll through this house of ghosts. The dancing “I” with seven heads spreads a breath of magic. Small groups gang up in step against soloists, on one occasion they all whip themselves up into a scene of garish polyphony […]. Goldin treats the figures in their everyday clothing, subtly shaded by Gaby Sogl, to engaging, contrasting solos, and pieces everything together to create a picture of southern passion surrounded by pre-winterly tristesse. […] Goldin’s kaleidoscope of moods and visions fills almost one and a half hours without having to tell a single simple story. At the end, the acclaim breaks through as unstoppably as the waves on the television screens.”
Harald Suerland, Westfälische Nachrichten, 3 December 2007
“A room as from long-forgotten days: high-ceilinged, baroque-looking, with the plaster laid bare at some places on the red walls. Seven figures dance their way into this mood of the ephemeral, choreographed by Daniel Goldin. […] Right at the beginning, images fraught with meaning: Eun-Sik Park, imperturbed, nails a suit to the wall. It repeatedly becomes part of her stage, her play with loneliness, her solo. Meanwhile, Tsutomu Ozeki noiselessly sets one foot before the other. Even in this everyday movement of walking, there is an aesthetic that casts its spell on one. […] Sweat, panting breath and jumps become fused. There are breathtaking, gruelling outbursts of speed, contrasting with minimal movements. It is incredible that where there is an almost complete absence of plot, so much yearning can still be expressed. And the gestures, like when the pain jangles in the head? – Plain to see. It is also clear that everyone is alone. Goldin opens a book of short stories. They are variations on the same theme. The motifs recur like waves. He permits a look behind the disguises and tricks of human beings and shows injuries. The scars of experience remain. Bravo!”
Ingrid Fisch, Die Glocke, 3 December 2007
“There are indeed seven of them, but ultimately Daniel Goldin’s dancers are alone, each one by himself/herself. […] The underlying mood in which the many different scenes move and undergo variation is one of loneliness. Encounters, let alone physical contact, are avoided. Goldin is a master when it comes to staging melancholy – as this dance evening on the Small Stage of Münster’s City Theatre once again demonstrates. […]“
Elisabeth Elling, Westfälischer Anzeiger, 5 December 2007