Breathing Irregular

Synopsis

Breathing Irregular will use the form of contemporary dance to explore a series of dramatic and uplifting real-life stories, which include a woman giving birth alone and a son desperately trying to resuscitate his father after cardiac arrest. Featuring a company of four actor/dancers, Breathing Irregular celebrates the human capacity to cope and above all to survive. The stories in Breathing Irregular are featured with the consent of the individuals involved.

Our Review:

Michael Coveney - 3 February 2010

Not a play about asthmatics, or sex maniacs, but a 50-minute dance drama based on a series of emergency telephone calls logged in a newspaper magazine, Carrie Cracknell’s new discipline-busting piece for the Gate treads a not so fine line between self-indulgence and pretentiousness.

The language of dance is old-style modern cliché: sudden surges to the side of the stage, jumping into arms, po-faced line-ups – all very stern, very low-rent Pina Bausch – while the five case studies perpetrated by the four performers don’t hang together other than as cries for help in a cruel world.

A multiple sclerosis victim has a choking fit. A house is on fire in Preston. A woman is apparently overcome by a severe attack of serial music and her five-year old son makes the call (why not just change the record?). Someone loses an arm and his friend loses his mind (“Where’s the arm?” asks the ambulance service, not unreasonably). A baby arrives unexpectedly early and the mother is talked ...

Read more of the review

Latest User Review

No reviews yet

Click here to add your review