THE ODYSSEY, Homer's epic poem written over two thousand years ago, is given the Mark Bruce Company dance theatre treatment; a dramatic, rich re-telling of the ten year journey undertaken by Odysseus after the fall of Troy. During his struggle to return home the King, (Christopher Tandy) faces the wrath of a reckless god (Chris Akrill) who drags Odysseus on an epic journey across oceans to strange lands and the darkness beyond. Immortal beauties, shape shifters, monsters and sorcerers both guide and torment the king as he hurtles towards a savage and desperate reunion with his queen (Hannah Kidd).
The cast and creative teams that produced the multi-award winning Dracula present a vision of a broken world; from faded New York pageants to islands of fantasy, brutal seas, battlefields and a gateway to Hades. Set to music ranging from Mozart to Mark Lanegan, Sacred Arias to The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, and an original Mark Bruce-composed score, this Odyssey is of now: contemporary horror and fantasy splintering from ancient myth; the headlong collision of universal themes, the encounter with mortality and the gods within... "Mark Bruce's vision of this dark, cultural foundation stone, is dark, violent and sexy...""Mark Bruce can excite your senses like few others in contemporary dance theatre...Greek myth it may be but the poem has all the timeless ingredients of a gripping story: deceit, naked ambition, violence, and love - and Bruce's telling, which is not slavish to the poem and characters, slips between Homer and the modern day."
DanceTabs
"Mark Bruce makes in-your-face theatre. It's very rock 'n' roll: loud, brash, bloody and violent - and not without a touch of humour. All this works well in a high octane version of the story."
theartsdesk
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