Bert and Nasi bring a stirring dance double-bill to The Lowry
| Taking place across Wed 26 and Thu 27 Apr, performance artists Bertrand Lesca and Nasi Voutsas explore emotion, mortality and endless regeneration with stripped-back yet profoundly evocative choreography in The End and The Beginning at The Lowry. |
| Billed as funny, playful and sometimes brutal, The End (Wed 26 Apr) is a poignant, playful account of the ongoing climate catastrophe. Equal parts softly soulful and ruthlessly stark, The End sees Bert and Nasi dance in a ‘ramshackle duet’ beneath a screen, onto which are projected two parallel narratives: the end of the world, and the end of their relationship.
In exploring the human perspective on impending doom at both the largest and smallest possible scale, Bert and Nasi deliver a timely meditation on the apocalypse while celebrating ‘the time we waste and the people we enjoy wasting it with’ (The Guardian). The following night, The Beginning (Thu 27 Apr) offers an alternative dance piece in which Bert and Nasi muse on the nature of starting over; a surreal, life-affirming odyssey through the joys, tribulations and emotional exhaustion of beginning, again and again, along different vectors of life and love. Working with a chorus of fifteen non-professional participants aged 60 and above, Bert and Nasi shepherd the audience to a ‘place of emotion and heart’ with simple, purposeful movements which the participants replicate, offering an affecting reminder that we can always choose how – and when – we want to begin again. Steve Cowton, Head of Programming Theatre Operations at The Lowry, said: “Bert and Nasi make beautiful performances that are virtually impossible to categorise. Gloriously low tech but strangely moving and profound – their shows always leave you with a smile and thinking about the world we inhabit. Absolutely unique – alternative national treasures – everyone should see one Bert and Nasi performance.” Matthew Eames, Head of Theatres (Contemporary Commissioning), added: “Bert & Nasi are quite unlike anyone else and they make work that is quite unlike anything else. They take a subject – whether it is Brexit, or the left/right political divide or the end of the world and reduce it to the relationship between two slightly ridiculous humans moving around a stage. “They are a pair of wallies – a pair of clowns without make up. They make you laugh, they disarm you, they charm you, they move you. Yet it’s hard to fathom why. They are upscaling for this show and we felt that The Lowry could help them do that. They take their work to festivals and theatres across the world now and I’m delighted that we will share the world premiere of The Beginning with Lowry audiences.’ |