Review of El Pliegue by Sònia Sánchez

I was struck by the amazing performance of the Catalan dancer Sònia Sánchez at the Project Art Center as part of the 10th Dublin Dance Festival which runs from the 20th to the 31st May. When she dances, the floor trembles and your heart and body are shaken by the harrowing force of her steps, hands and deep voice. The fierce sound of them urges you to feel and it fills your soul with strength to face life, turning fear into courage.

You feel an ancestral force of life coming back to you from a remote place you didn't know existed, because you have never experienced it before. In her piece El Pliegue, The fold, the Catalan dancer has turned her reading of the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze into a splendid embodied experience. Steps of the Spanish flamenco meet the Japanese butoh dance, creating a poem of corporal expression that shows the infinite possibility of movements of the muscles and folds of our bodies from head to toe.

In the beginning, the dancer, wrapped in complete darkness and silence, hits the ground like a warrior spearing against them. A diagonal light enlightens while she starts stepping forward towards the light with strong determination, opening her arms with her body bent on her knees in a position ready for attacking or fending. She steps forth, first left then right, with her hands following her steps then her hands move together in and out while she hits the floor. She stretches with her hands towards the light while walking towards it. The hands and steps then move back in long movements and come back towards the light; she touches her upper legs, as if to get rid of something that lies on them. She clicks with her fingers as if they were castanets, her body straightening slowly up, her arms reaching up and moving around on her wrists sinuously. Then she goes back, the intensity of her steps and hands increases.

Afterwards she dances laterally where another light opens up, showing her a new way that she opens with her fierce steps. I have seen her in two out the three performances in Dublin and I have noticed how she improvises, introducing each time some changes and dedicating time on different elements of her piece. On the first night, she focused on twisting movements of her upper body and hands while she is with her head down and hair covering her face, while in the final performance she gives more time to the songs. She comes back to the stage for the applause and then sings a song of tribute while clapping her hands together and also on her body.

In both performances, her body changes with vigorous movements, releasing sometimes the tension in circular turns with her hands and hips full of erotic charge. You feel her physical presence when drops of her sweat fall to the ground, she pulls slowly her hair and makes sounds with her tongue. She also gazes at the audience with her piercing blue eyes, as if asking: "Why don't you look into your own folds, your own energy inside?"

She sings two beautiful Spanish songs that reach straight to the heart, showing her gift for singing. At the end, she moves right in front of the audience, opening her arms while a spotlight is on her body as she sings a sweet Flamenco lullaby whilst moving her hands in butoh movements, playing with the light until her hand leaves it. She still sings while she walks offstage, then the song finishes and the lights go down. The audience applauds and whoops, mesmerised by such a strong and energetic performance. She has danced as if it was the last dance putting all in all her heart and body.

Her dance makes the body alive and frees it from the steps of the traditional dance of Flamenco, opening it towards oriental influences, reawakening the passion and the rebel force from which it started, the fight for the affirmation of the individual in a society full of constraints of convenience. She does it with sensual valour and furore as a warrior fighting for love and determined to triumph.