Momentum theatre company are to premiere Anima at the Unity, Liverpool

Jan 21 2008 by Philip Key, Liverpool Daily Post

Anima by Momentum at the Unity Theatre, Liverpool _320

WITH their production of Tmesis, Yorgos Karamalegos and Elinor Randle created one of Liverpool’s most amazing theatre pieces.

The two performers spent much of the show draped around each other as they undertook various physical moves, creating some mind-bending images.

They followed that up with Momento Mori, if anything even more physically daring.

Now the pair are to premiere the third in the trilogy of works, Anima.

This was previewed at the Unity Theatre a few weeks ago, but has been reworked by the company to create a finalised work.

“We went to Wuppertal for 10 days and worked with the choreographer Malou Airaudo, which was an exciting experience,” says Karamalegos.

She runs the Pina Bausch Dance Theatre and had already done some preparatory work with the two performers before the preview.

Much has changed and the dream aspect of the piece – it is set in a sort of dreamworld – has been accentuated. Some parts of the preview performance have been abandoned, others put in.

Karamalegos says the three works are all connected, the first showing two people as one, the second a journey in a man’s mind, and in the third the two contrasting sides of a personality learn to live together. It had been a challenge to capture the dream world they wanted, he says. Some aspects of the preview show were too logical, earlier pieces too abstract, but now they are convinced they have got it right.

The Liverpool Culture Company has commissioned the work, allowing the company to experiment even more – a swing, for example, is a central part to one section of the show, and there are smoke and bubble machines.

Karamalegos and Randle, joint artistic directors of Momentum, met on a course at Liverpool’s Hope Street theatre school and created the company in 2003.

Its mixture of dance, drama and highly physical movement was an immediate success and the company has since toured Britain and Europe.

Anima will run at the Unity Theatre, Liverpool, between February 5 and 9, before heading off on tour.

philkey@dailypost.co.uk