Re:Incarnation, presented by Dance Consortium, is on at The Lowry’s Lyric theatre for a very short (2-night) run. In the allotted 90 minutes we are given an insight into Yoruba culture and it’s an evening like no other I’ve seen, comprising the cycle of life as viewed from a Yoruba perspective via some extremely vigorous dancing and song which both have roots in the chaos that is Lagos.
The sequence we are taken through misses out some parts of the cycle, but we are shown tbi (birth), iku (death), atunbi (rebirth) and reincarnation after cleansing by fire (I missed the title of that), each introduced by an irritatingly hard to read dropdown at the back of the stage. It’s a dance vocabulary that is completely alien to me but seemed to be familiar to most of the rest of the audience.
We started with some very loud synthesised music, and equally loud vocals, with dance that ends up with a scene in which everyone is being rogered (the only possible description), and birth ensues.
With some amazingly tortured writhing, this paves the way to death, and we were all in awe of the energy expended in the throes.
This is followed by what I took to be a spell in purgatory (or possibly hell) with more almost epileptic writhing, before rebirth takes place, again vigorously danced and sung, and at this point the two very talented musicians took over for a spell, allowing the dancers to regroup. I imagine they needed to.
A rather extended soliloquy (that could have been taken from an equivalent of the Book of Proverbs) introduces the cleansing by fire, and after an extended series of ritualistic events we are back to the loud music we started with. The cycle is complete.
The tour continues to Hull, Newcastle and Edinburgh.
Paul Schofield for Canal Street Media