Tribal Disintergration, by Deborah Jowitt is a review from bodies in motion on Sasha Waltz’s work Kreatur. Kreatur is German for the English term “creature.” I emphasize the importance of this translation because the movement and style of the piece reflects the title in every way. Jowitt announces her preconceieved notion that she believes the fourteen dancers who took part in the choreographic process to be one entity, but she is quickly proven wrong when they break away from their somewhat powerless unified group, and in her words “they become powerful, experimental, tender, or dangerous—their own agents. Or creatures.”
Tribal Disintergration contrasts from Yvonne Rainer’s famous work Trio A (1966), also known as The Mind a Muscle, Part 1 because not only is it a solo of Rainer herself, but also because it exemplifies the true definition of analytical postmodern dance in the seventies. Sally Banes reviews Rainer’s work as “a single phrase, four-and-one half minutes long, it dispenses with phrasing, development, climax, the virtuosic feat, and the fully extended body of modern dance, substituting energy equality, equality of parts, found movement, and human scale.” Rainer’s work is subtle and the movements are mostly influenced by the abstract; she practices the minimalist sculpture.
I found the dandelion-like technological costumes by fashion designer Iris van Herpen spectacular. The dancers of Tribal Disintegration wore these fuzzy mounds of tiny metallic filaments to possibly signify a cacoon of a creature. I could picture the movements of the dancers through Jowitt’s words and eyes. I would have loved to see it action. Dissimiliar to the cast of Tribal Disintergration, Yvonee Rainer is in practical pedistration clothing. The focus is completely on her movement patterns that follow one after another.