As one of the highlights of cont.act Dance Festival 2026, T.H.E. Dance Company’s annual festival, Elusive brings together the company’s dancers and international choreographers in two contrasting works that explore repetition, loss and physical connection.
Both pieces are performed in the round, placing the audience around the performance space rather than directly in front of it. This arrangement creates a different relationship between the dancers and their surroundings, while allowing the audience to experience the movement from multiple perspectives.
Carillon Turns Repetition Into Something Unsettling
The first work, Carillon, is choreographed by Ginevra Panzetti and Enrico Ticconi.
Six dancers enter the space with immediate energy, their arms moving through sharp, angular gestures while their feet follow an insistent rhythmic pattern.
The title refers to a carillon, a large European bell instrument traditionally consisting of multiple bells operated through a keyboard and commonly housed in a bell tower.
Composer Demetrio Castellucci reflects this idea in the score, combining a melody that recalls the sound of bells with a persistent beat.
Initially, the choreography has an almost playful quality. The dancers move with lively energy and maintain bright expressions, creating a sense of quirky entertainment.
As the movement continues, however, that lightness gradually gives way to something more uncomfortable.
The dancers’ smiles remain almost completely unchanged despite the relentless repetition of their movements. What initially looks cheerful begins to feel artificial, with the performers taking on the appearance of automatons following a programmed routine.
This growing sense of repetition becomes central to Carillon. The work can be read in several ways: as a reflection on the routines of everyday life, as a warning about the possibility of becoming trapped in mechanical habits, or even as an image of childhood innocence slowly fading as life moves forward.
Rather than providing one definitive interpretation, the choreography establishes a clear central idea while leaving its details open to the audience.
A Physically Demanding Exercise in Precision
The precision required by Carillon becomes particularly noticeable during the early sections of the performance.
There are a few minor slips, including a handkerchief that is dropped or nearly dropped, as well as moments when some dancers appear to miss the beat. These mistakes stand out because the choreography depends so heavily on timing and unison.
The dancers recover quickly, however, and maintain their concentration throughout the approximately 40-minute work.
With movement continuing for much of the piece, Carillon demands considerable stamina. The performers must repeatedly execute the same physical patterns while maintaining control, rhythm and coordination.
Despite the occasional early misstep, the dancers ultimately sustain the demanding movement with admirable commitment.
O:ro Takes a More Intuitive Approach to Mourning
The second work, Kim Bora’s O:ro, presents a stark contrast in both movement quality and physical approach.
While Carillon is built around repetition and carefully coordinated movement, O:ro places greater emphasis on somatic impulses and the dancers’ physical responses to one another.
The programme describes the work as being concerned with mourning, although it does not specify exactly what or whom is being mourned. This ambiguity leaves room for the audience to construct their own interpretation.
The five dancers wear loose, shapeless cream-coloured shifts covered with holes. Much of the choreography takes place with their bodies gathered closely together, as they crawl, climb over one another and respond to changes in touch and movement.
Their physical awareness of one another becomes one of the work’s most compelling qualities. Instead of simply executing a predetermined sequence, the dancers appear to observe, listen and react through their bodies.
The performers also use vocalisations inspired by Jeongga, a traditional Korean vocal art associated with the aristocracy of the Joseon Dynasty.
At first, the sustained and ghostly sounds can evoke the impression of distant cries or spirits. As the performance progresses, however, the voices become increasingly varied in pitch, duration and quality.
These changes make the relationship between voice and movement particularly apparent. Sound does not function merely as an accompaniment to the choreography; it becomes another physical element through which the dancers express themselves.
A Chaotic Release Brings the Work to a Haunting Close
The tension gradually accumulates as the dancers move towards the work’s climax.
They gather into a tightly connected group, building physical and collective energy until the tension suddenly breaks.
The dancers then scatter across the performance space, their bodies moving rapidly in different directions in a moment of apparent chaos.
After this eruption, the intensity gradually subsides. The dancers slow their movements and become increasingly quiet, allowing the atmosphere to shift from physical upheaval towards stillness.
When the lights eventually fade, the performance leaves behind an unsettling and lingering impression rather than a neatly resolved conclusion.
The contrast between Carillon and O:ro ultimately gives Elusive much of its impact. Carillon presents the body through repetition, rhythm and precision. Its performers become increasingly mechanical as the choreography exposes the unsettling side of routine and persistence.
O:ro, by contrast, treats the body as something instinctive and responsive. Touch, vocalisation and physical awareness become important ways for the dancers to communicate with one another and explore the idea of mourning.
The two works therefore offer very different perspectives on physical expression. One finds meaning through structure and repetition, while the other allows meaning to emerge through sensation, connection and collective response.
Together, they demonstrate how the body can communicate experiences that are difficult to articulate verbally, from the routines that quietly shape everyday life to forms of loss that resist easy definition.
Read the Original Article: T.H.E Dance Company presents two contrasting and thought-provoking pieces in Elusive
