Evidentia DVD – William Forsythe, Sylvie Guillem

An innovative attempt to reconfigure dance for the digital age, Evidentia is a fantasy on the idea of movement put together by a number of directors and choreographers under the guidance of French ballerina Sylvie Guillem, consisting of five separate films. “Solo” is a study in improvised gesture, virtuosically danced by William Forsythe. “Blue Yellow” dwells on Guillem’s poetic dance measures in a yellow studio, looking inward from the confines of a blue room. “Smoke” explores relationships in highly abstract terms, though the emotion-laden narrative unfolded by Guillem and Niklas Ek makes for truly “visceral visuals”. “Movement” is even more oblique–indeed, its montage of documentary-cum-movie footage (everything from Paris riots to Buster Keaton) and studio trickery make for a film around rather than about movement. “In the Wind, There is Someone” is, again, a video composition rather than a dance work, the Paris Opera’s scenery store providing an intriguing and characterful backdrop. The films are connected by Guillem’s often fanciful narration, with rehearsal sequences evoking a Chanel commercial. On the DVD: Evidentia comes in Linear-PCM Stereo with English commentary only, while the 4:3 picture format switches between black and white and colour with vivid immediacy. The booklet contains a background feature in five European languages. –Richard Whitehouse