Belgrade



Founders of the company, Israeli chorographers Roni Haver (who performed and directed the show) and Guy Weizman presented their work of dance theatre at the beginning of March at Belgrade’s Bitef Theatre: a dance performance that is imbued with danger, sexuality, high-strung emotions and moments of passion, named “The Scent of Cinnamon“. It is an intimate show intriguingly named after highly aromatic inner bark of the Canella Wintering used as a condiment and a tonic, made out of word from French cannelle. The show is inspired by Bible’s “Song of Songs” (Solomon Song), a psalm from the Old Testament that talks about love. The performance was done on 21st birthday of Bitef Theatre where choreographer Guy Weizman and the Dutch Guy and Roni Club engaged Estonian composers (Arvo Part, Lepo Sumera, Mart-Matis Lill i Erkki -Sven). And the music was alive performed on the stage behind the dancers.
The circle of performance is actually the relation between male and female emotions, a concept based on fragments and symbols from Bible’s “Song of Songs”, an Old Testament poem that actually offers different interpretations, so the levels of scene readings are different, profane and ordinary at the same time, so it reaches to a deeper level and meaning afterwards. The relations include man/woman, woman/woman, man/society, man/god etc…



The experience in watching includes witnessing a dance that has no plot, no political message, and no conventional grace usual for dance performances, yet it is so full of raw emotion and sudden movement that sustain interest till the end. The tenderness, romance, sexuality and a hard straightforward work makes this performance steady. With no interpretations and harsh structure the doors to this world are open, and the dancers are locked in it, in subtle forms of interaction with each other. The tone of performance slightly changes from dark to light to dark again. Here, it is nerve wracking to see bodies slide back and forth, shaking the entire unit. “This is really a performance about love, it is never ending search for love that manifests differently, sometimes gentle, sometimes passionate, sometimes aggressive. The show is like that, romantic and cruel, but above all basically true and honest. Its slight sexual content provoked the audience in US for instance” explained Weizman.


Weizmans’ previous play “Language of Walls” is familiar to Belgrade’s audience: this show has won the Audience Award at 40s Bitef Theatre Festival. In the world of Club Guy and Roni it feels like you are eavesdropping on barely heard, very quiet conversations of some private party. The Club gathers dancers from different cultural environments from all over the world. And they do weird combinations of dance techniques, and different theatre elements: they create performances that explore choreographies of human spirit trapped in one body, with no formality. The performers at the company are exhibitionists and speak to the audience directly. We are present at moments of aggression, disgust, beauty and fascination at the same time. The company is, above all, a contemporary dance company based in Holland, and their previous performance “The Language of Walls” is a fierce testament to what the body and mind can and do to endure. The art space of exploration of Ron and Guy Club Company is half a way between art that is conspicuous and apparent in the world filled with visual sensations, and at the other hand, art that is created with intimate space of silent, far away from it all. Walls is, for instance, composed of several vignettes of unusual stories strung together by unison sections danced calculatedly: here we have women that throw themselves in explosions unsuspectingly across the stage…


Bitef Theatre,
Skver Mire Trailović 1 Street,
11 000 Belgrade, Serbia
381 11 3220608
381 11 3236234
www.bitef.rs