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Review: Chelsea Hotel by Earthfall

★★★★☆
Four Stars
 
New York’s Chelsea Hotel has been both the subject and the birthplace of many great works of art. Bob Dylan lived there, Dylan Thomas died there, in fact, seemingly every creatively-significant figure of the last hundred years has spent a night within those walls. It was perhaps most memorably immortalised in the Leonard Cohen song Chelsea Hotel #2 – a love ballad to Janis Joplin, music and fellatio.
 
The latest attempt to capture the incredible history of this building comes from Wales-based dance theatre company, Earthfall. Their production, named after and dedicated to the Chelsea, passed through Oxford’s own Pegasus Theatre last Saturday, as part of a national tour. Thematically comparable to Leonard’s notorious lyrics, it was sexy, fast-paced and wonderfully eclectic.
 
In an effort to evoke the sheer quantity and variety of artistic creation that took place there, the seven-strong cast managed to pack their hour-long show with a incredibly disparate range of performace-genres. Dance, monologues, photography, live film and pre-recorded film were all used to good effect and the result was an ever-changing, and so ever-entertaining, frenzy of action.
 
The recitations of diaristic, beat-inspired poetry that punctuated the dancing were maybe a little less accomplished than other elements and this revealed that the performers were dancers first and actors second. The accompanying band skilfully manoeuvred around a similarly broad selection of styles. Rather than sticking solely to the guitar ballads that one traditionally associates with the hotel’s most famous residents, they reminded us that this place was not only a pilgrimage site for 60s folk, but everything from rock to classical, pop to jazz.
 
The musicians freely walked around the stage and among the dancers, bringing to life the idea of artistic cross-breeding that is so central to the hotel’s mythology. However, it was difficult to avoid making an immediate comparison between their original compositions and the rest of the Chelsea’s output, which put the musicians in a fairly challenging position.
 
There was no doubt that the dancing was the true highlight of the evening – spectacular throws and leaps and holds prompting audible gasps from the audience. A scene in which two of the performers portrayed the birth of a child had particular beauty, with one perched precariously on the other’s shoulders, frozen in a sort of embryonic pose.
 
Sadly, this was a one-night-only show, but if you ever get the opportunity to catch another Earthfall performance, they come highly-recommended. It is clear that their innovative mix of media will always provide an interesting spectacle, that will surely cater to all tastes.
 
Find out more about Earthfall here

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