Honouring death through dance
Linda Murgatroyd reviews Soul Play, a dance-theatre duet about deatn and bereavement
Soul Play is a gentle and intimate dance-theatre duet that explores the moments following a young man’s death. Kate Flatt devised it in response to her own grief upon the death of family members. A secondment at a local hospice as part of a Rayne Choreographic fellowship encouraged this further, and Soul Play also draws on her experience of folk dance in Eastern Europe, Korea and elsewhere. ‘Dance is such a force for life’, says Flatt, ‘that when the right time came, I was not afraid to tackle this taboo subject.’ It’s an intimate and gripping forty minutes, brilliantly performed by actor Sam Curtis and dancer Joy Constantinides, encompassing extraordinary moments of solitude, anger, laughter, sadness, vitality and deep compassion. The narrative is conveyed through an outstanding range of expressive movement and evocative words, supported by strong but simple visual and sound elements which interact wonderfully with the performers. The audience is engaged at a deep level, with many questions left for their imagination and interpretation.
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