Raise the Hammer

As a dancer and choreographer who attended and enjoyed Sand Body, I feel the need to counter this review.

Sand Body is a brave work to bring to Hamilton. It is deeply rooted in both contemporary performance practice and contemporary dance which makes it stand out from typical performance offerings in Hamilton. It has great humanity and a clarity of vision which shines through. Sand Body is accessible work to those who are willing to approach it in the spirit of the Fringe: with openness and genuine curiosity.

Sand Body invites the audience to use all of its senses to experience the performance. It challenges the notion that dance can only be experienced with our eyes.The soundscape that accompanies Sand Body is not typical recorded music. It is the sound of the sand being flung, poured and shifted with the weight of the dancer’s body. It is the sound of the dancer’s breath, the crackling of the tarp and the movements of the audience. I had no problem with the requests to open and close my eyes at various points in the piece. This only heightened the experience and further encouraged me to fully open to the performance.

Meryem Alaoui is an adept dancer. She has selected a movement vocabulary that is understated, but each movement, no matter how small draws the viewer in with its intensity and purpose. It is hard not to have an immediate response to the performer’s body merging and emerging from the landscape: her toes sliding through the sand, her arms reaching out and weight shifting through her body in ripples. It is important to clarify that dance is not always about high kicks, pirouettes, leaps, poses. Nor does it have to tell a story with a linear narrative. The best dancing can come from the smallest movements, which appear larger than life by virtue of the skill and attention the performer gives them and by the images they evoke for the viewer. This is certainly the case for Sand Body.

Lovers of dance and those who are curious and eager to experience a cutting edge performance will not be disappointed with Sand Body. Be sure to see it here at the Hamilton Fringe Festival before it heads to Summerworks festival in Toronto this August.