REVIEW: The Festival d'Avignon Presents DELIRIOUS NIGHT By Mette Ingvartsen

Mette Ingvartsen’s Delirious Night, now in performance at the Festival d’Avignon’s Cour du Lycée St. Joseph, tries historical moments of frenzy, like medieval carnivals, on for size. The cast enters in mostly casual attire and masks. A performer then begins to clap a rhythm. This rhythm is gradually taken up by the other dancers, who fill the center of the cour with a run and kick. Other dancers join in. Ingvartsen has choreographed in whirls punctuated by moments of concentrated movement. Acrobatic feats offer brief thrills amid the flailing and obscene gesturing. Save for a brief waltz roughly three-quarters of the way through, the choreography sustains its tumult. This dance, intended to crescendo into mania, instead veers toward exhaustion.

Though frenzied, and despite a few moments that play with the proscenium, the dance stays safely on stage. The set features a few platforms with poles connected by bulb lighting, evoking a town square or patio bar. Minna Tikkainen’s lighting succeeds in transforming the space. Shifts in the bulb lights turn the piazza atmosphere into a rave. While I struggled to find a point of connection with the choreography itself, the concert elements of Delirious Night hook you in. Will Guthrie anchors the piece with a tour-de-force percussion solo. Facing stage left from his platform, he provides constant propulsion throughout the hour-long set. Sound designer Milan Van Doren offers a mix of pulsing beats. Later, a performer takes the mic to sing original lyrics by Ingvartsen:
“This that loud / This that emotional / This that expressive / This that uncontrollable.”
Its mix of whimsical sincerity and raw intensity grasped at something affecting.

I’ve made a pastime of glancing at audiences during performances. Sometimes, during a twist, you’ll see excited whispers between couples. Sometimes, during an aria, eyes close in rapture. At Delirious Night, the audience mostly watched in contemplative repose. Their stillness contrasted so sharply with the punk rock mania onstage that it felt like a one-way mirror separated them from the action. Though elevated by elements like the imaginative masks by Costume Designer Jennifer Defays, Delirious Night doesn’t so much revive the medieval as aestheticize punk.

Photo Credit: Christophe Raynaud de Lage

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