Pinocchio at Dance City was a memorably dark telling of a tale about difference

It’s easy to forget just what a dark tale Pinocchio is – but Jasmin Vardimon’s version provided an excellent reminder.

“Boys who try to have things their own way always come to grief”, the powerful-voiced narrator warned at one point during this dance production, which could be said to be about the dangers of being different, whether in appearance, ability or outlook, in a world that demands conformity.

We witnessed Pinocchio being taunted, exploited, hounded and abused during his quest to fit in and make a mark in the world – at one point being swung around and then flung across the stage like a toy.

The company’s view of the show as suitable only for older children was wise; one very young member of the audience was so unsettled by the sight of the carpenter Geppetto creating his wooden boy in one of the opening scenes – with only their oversized shadows visible to the audience – that she and her mother had to leave.

Pinocchio’s eventual coming to life was a tour de force on the part perfectly gamine Maria Doulgeri.

She stumbled around the stage like a newborn foal, utterly convincing as a creature who has to learn to use his body quickly.

Learning to be human proved to be a far greater task, the show taking us through a range of negative emotions that Pinocchio must deal with as he interacts with the unsavoury characters who lead him astray.

There was no dialogue, the story told entirely through movement, dance, facial expressions and occasional appearances by the narrator, whose otherworldly, disembodied face is formed from the hands of some of the performers.

This was one of many inventive tricks which are simple but effective.

The tepee that starts out as Geppetto’s workshop becomes, under different lighting, a fairy’s dress and then a circus tent.

Good use was made of elasticated wiring attached to the ceiling in the scenes in which human marionettes perform and Geppetto takes to the sea in search of his lost son. And in one rather surreal scene, two of the performers’ feet are transformed into the faces of a couple having a romantic meal.

Perhaps most impressively, the dancers linked arms and transform themselves into a chain of pop-up characters from a music box-type device, somehow making the illusion look effortless.

It’s not always  easy to tell a story non-verbally and I have to confess I wasn’t always completely sure what was going on, while other scenes seemed to be laboured long after their point had been made, increasing the sense of the oppressiveness of Pinocchio’s predicaments.

This was especially the case in a scene in which Pinocchio is cowed by a lion tamer.

This being a tale about a character for whom a sense of belonging is elusive, the dance on display was rarely about synchronicity and symmetry. A brief, fun routine performed to Beyoncé’s Crazy in Love and a beautiful balletic segment stood out.

More typical was the scene in which menacing characters in black descend on Pinocchio brandishing strips of black polythene, which they use to tie him to the spot. If Pinocchio is our hero, he’s not necessarily a very likeable one. Money-loving and desperate to be one of the ‘in crowd’, he comes across as a character with much to learn about the world.

One of my party felt the ending tied things up too neatly. It was a fair point but I think many will have been glad of a little light after the darkness.