Review | Home/Killer Pig, performed by Rambert2, at MAST: 'Stunning, extraordinary and voyeuristic'

With lighting, costume and music reflecting the inner turmoil which I presume was inspired somewhat by the anxiety inducing pandemic, it was a technically excellent ensemble performance, with moments of silence (bar the breathing of the dancers, and the occasional guttural cry) to bring what's in the head onto stage.

As the first show post-pandemic for MAST (Mayflower Studios in the old city Nuffield), this world premiere was challenging to watch, with a touch of lightness in a dark-Broadway-style minute or two.

Rambert2 believes that its' dancers, and these performances, have the 'power to change the world for the better' through what they're showing.

This is quite an aspiration but the second piece, and its haunting images, will stay with me for a long time.

Killer Pig, by Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar, can be described as stunning, extraordinary and voyeuristic.

The human dancing form is displayed in the most unique manner, where the audience intimately witnesses the barely clothed, grotesque yet utterly beautiful movements of the body, cramped into repetition of motifs, and freed from them in extraordinary ways.

It is repellent and also so utterly compelling as the eight performers – including the mesmerising Comfort Kondehson – paused, slowed things to a heart beat in delicate moments, before ramping up to astonishing pace as club beats throb.

Ballet, hip-hop and more combine in this fierce and spiky wonder.

It's billed as 45 minutes but after what I thought was 15, it was suddenly over. I was bereft. I wanted to witness it again, immediately.

I wanted to be up there, to be a dancer, to find the body I probably once had the potential to have but squandered in the real raves, instead of the interpretive (and much cooler) version on stage.

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

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