Introdans dances fine art – anything but insipid (****)

… Take Regina van Berkel (1969), on the other hand. She and surrealist painter Salvador Dalí are a match made in heaven. The theatrical Frozen Echo (2011) is set to the rich orchestral composition of the same name by Theo Verbey, in which high, thin notes alternate with heavy brass, timpani and a wind machine. The eyecatcher in the fascinating stage set by Dietmar Janeck is a floating dinosaur spine made from computer monitors that are linked together. Set back from the tableau of dancers, three striking women roam around the stage in long dresses, their heads adorned with an arrangement of flowers, a feather headpiece or a short black lace veil.

In this bizarre universe, Van Berkel creates intriguing different divisions and subdivisions of the stage. With a cluster of people here and several stray individuals over there, or a compact mass that then fans out into a diagonal ribbon across the stage, she constantly creates images that you wish you could freeze and hold onto as a painting or a photograph – that’s how concretely realized and beautiful they are. The lighting, which shifts between white and color, definitely contributes to this. It’s also lovely how dynamic movement, slow-mo and standstill can often be seen coexisting simultaneously. Frozen Echo is a filmic fantasy about mankind – as strange as it is logical.