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    Heavy yearning, dammed up fury, a touch of insecurity and a lot of courage are some of the factors in a dance theatre project in which eight young performers from Belgium and Germany swing between breaking out and breaking down. Their uncompromising view of society brings them up against patchwork families, and forces them to face their bouts of hyperactivity, sensitivity and social resistance. Everyday life is the focus of their narratives which contain fictional stories spliced with biographical insertions, all of which provide a commentary on our times. Al Gore’s commitment to climate protection is dismissed as “vain”. By contrast Dolly the cloned sheep gets an ironic posthumous homage, and threatened dolphins are supposed to be helped by an appeal for donations. In between these episodes stuffed animals are thrown through the room, vampire jokes are exchanged and Elvis Presley’s “In the Ghetto” is sung with a jokey vibrato. An a cappella rendition of Adele’s “Someone like you” triggers off further waves of emotion in their adolescent world. The need to live together and not be left alone sweeps over into the audience. 

    This panorama created by eight young people, all at an age where questions are asked about what you want from life, is raw, honest and playful in the performer’s desire to find out more about themselves: “We promise everyone we want to respect ourselves.” “Young & Furious” was devised by the multi-prize-winning choreographer Samir Akika and a young director from Münster called Johannes Fundermann. It is the first joint work between two unconventional playmakers. The international language of dance takes up themes like politics, ecology and interpersonal relationships, and these run through the show like a common thread. That said there is no continuous storyline. For two hours audiences experience the search for identity and the insecurity of growing up in the form of a wildly chaotic piece of dance theatre. Dance as a philosophy of life and survival strategy.

     

     

    Heike Albrecht