The Observer, by Luke Jennings
There’s a sequence in Vincent Dance Theatre’s Motherland that’s repeated at intervals throughout the two-hour piece. Aurora Lubos enters with a bottle of blood-red dye, slops a great gob of it on the all-white backdrop and, hitching her skirt up to her waist, leans back against it so that it seems to be welling from inside her, then fixes us with a sad, abject gaze. Then Andrea Catania comes on, flicks a hopeless glance at the audience and collapses, apparently lifeless, on to a pile of soil. Finally, Patrycja Kujawska saunters diagonally across the stage, playing a lyrical air on a violin.
Choreographer-director Charlotte Vincent founded her company in Sheffield in 1994 and since that date has undertaken a series of explorations of the human condition and of the nature of performance itself. Lubos’s actions remind us of the ineluctable nature of the female cycle, while simultaneously informing us of her physical preoccupations as a dancer who is also a mother. Catania’s collapse suggests a different realm of female experience: a sense of her own invisibility. An apprehension that she could, at any moment, be obliterated from the consciousness of those about her. “I’m here,” she calls out at intervals. “I’m still here.” Kujawska, meanwhile, seems to provide a commentary on the way that the raw stuff of women’s lives is aestheticised and made poignant. The eternal, after all, does not have to be acted on.
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Cloud Dance Festival, by Anna Pearce
One of the great things about the performance space in the Robin Howard Dance Theatre at The Place is the proximity of the audience to the performers and their experiences on stage. As Charlotte Vincent’s cast of ten (five men, four women and one child) present their smiling selves to their audience in the opening of Motherland, the smiles connected and felt infectious, many in the audience smiling back at them.
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LondonDance, by Jeffrey Gordon Baker
In Hollywood speak it could be said that Charlotte Vincent’s Motherland has high production values. It is a slick and stylish piece of dance theatre that tackles feminist concerns with a gritty, gutsy humour. Aurora Lubos clip-clops across the stage in high heels and a little black dress, holding a wine bottle as though she’s on her way to a dinner party. She stops, opens the bottle and douses the wall with a splash, not of wine, but a viscous bright red liquid. She then lifts up her skirt, positioning herself over the mark so it looks as though the splatter has just run out of her own body. The blood, sweat and dirt of late second wave feminism are all on display in this episodic treatment of sex, womanhood, manhood and to a lesser extent, motherhood.
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The Stage, by Neil Norman
Charlotte Vincent’s dance and theatre company has been creating provocative work since 1994 and the latest packs a considerable wallop on behalf of the sisterhood. A succession of rapid sequences – some of them repeated at various intervals during the two-hour running time – attempt to expose the fundamental differences (and inequalities) between men and women, physically, psychologically and socially. Sex, menstruation and childbirth are depicted with startling theatrical images. There is a lot of blood.
What saves this from being just another exercise in nu-feminist men-bashing is the sheer wealth of imagery and an exhilarating propulsion.
Structured like a kind of warped Alice in Wonderland, with a 12-year-old girl witnessing the events and asking awkward questions about her own burgeoning sexuality, it is also blessed with a live musical accompaniment of spectacular depth and variety.
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The Guardian, Judith Mackrell
Charlotte Vincent’s new work about physical and sexual politics revolves around the anxious, quizzical presence of a 12-year-old girl. As Leah Yeger observes the behaviour of the nine adults around her, we can see her sharp-featured, haunting little face pondering what it will feel like when she is grown up, too.
This is the unique strength of Motherland. Much of its material addresses obvious issues of sexual stereotyping, but it’s tethered to the flesh and blood experience of the individual. Vincent might deliver a comic riff on the cheap sexualisation of women’s bodies – three women in cripplingly high heels, contorted into cartoon displays of provocation – but she counters it with moving references to real life. As 78-year-old Benita Oakley talks quietly about giving birth or Aurora Lubos crouches over splatters of dark red gore, Vincent asks the implicit question of how women can be free, between the two extremes of botox and blood.
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The London Evening Standard, Lyndsey Winship
American author Hanna Rosin recently published a book called The End of Men, arguing that women were moving towards being the dominant sex, more capable of adapting to our fast-changing world. The patriarchy is morphing into a matriarchy, apparently. Rosin’s thesis came to mind while watching Charlotte Vincent’s new dance theatre piece Motherland, which focuses on women, motherhood and having it all. Was this a portrait of women thriving in a new era, glossy CEOs tapping on their BlackBerrys while popping out babies? Hardly. Was it an unromanticised picture of identity crisis, competing pressures, running in circles and a lot of (rather realistic) periods? Yep, that’s the one.
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Ballet Dance Magazine, David Mead
Charlotte Vincent’s new “Motherland” is a challenging, multi-layered and often thought-provoking journey through motherhood, women’s choices and image. Much of the time that journey is messy. A recurring scene sees Aurora Lubos walk on in an elegant black evening dress and high heels, red wine bottle in hand. But instead of drinking it, she splashes red blood-like liquid against the white back wall, hitches up her dress and, staring straight at us, sits right over the stain. After a few seconds, Andrea Catania walks on and collapses in a pile of earth, closely followed by Patrycja Kujawska playing a soulful tune on a violin. Explanation is not required. And what is Vincent’s view of men? She has them walk on, smile at us, drink from the bottle and walk off. Don’t think for a minute, though, that Vincent’s journey is all dark and depressing; far from it.
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The Times, Donald Hutera
Charlotte Vincent packs a lot of thought and feelings into her latest work for the Sheffield- based Vincent Dance Theatre. Lasting two hours, this sometimes admirably uncompromising, yet bloated and patchy company-devised production deals with mothering, women’s choices, rights and image (both as depicted by the wider culture and self-defined) and the inequality between the sexes. With a multi-generational cast of ten it’s staged and structured like a Pina Bausch cabaret.
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Writing About Dance, Nicholas Minns
Life is a messy business, starting, as Charlotte Vincent does in Motherland, with periods. Aurora Lubos, elegantly dressed in black evening wear and high heels walks on to the bare, white stage with a bottle of red wine. She unscrews the top and slops it against the pristine backdrop at seat level: a dripping red splash. She puts down the bottle, hitches up her tight skirt and slides her back down the wall until she is sitting over the red stain. She remains there for a moment looking at us, challenging us to accept what she is representing. Soon after, an exhausted Andrea Catania walks in and collapses on the floor, like a bag from which the wind has been suddenly removed. Patrycja Kujawska walks across the back playing an elegy on her violin for the two women. It is a sequence that repeats throughout Motherland, Vincent’s examination of ‘the complex internal and external relationships that women have with their bodies, with their sense of self and with men.’ The latter are represented a few seconds later by a carefree Greig Cooke who walks on with his bottle of wine, smiles at us as he unscrews the top and takes a swig before continuing on his way.
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Interview by Article19 with Charlotte Vincent and cast members of Motherland.
Watch the interview here>
