Place Resolution 2025 - works by Casper Dillen/Small Sample Size Theatre and Shiyu Lu/Haonan Ma
My second Resolution 2025 review - a fine show that featured the most exciting piece of physical theatre I have ever seen at Resolution…
The Place’s generic picture for this show. Photo © The Place.
Place Resolution festival
Casper Dillen & Small Sample Size Theatre: Mouth Wash and Razor Blades
Shiyu Lu & Haonan Ma: Empty But Solid
Unreviewed, but on the bill - Divija Melally & Saili Katebe: Six Degrees from Home
★★★★✰
18 Jan 2025
London, The Place
theplace.org.uk
Resolution is The Place’s annual festival of new choreography and performance works by emerging artists. This review was originally commissioned by The Place as part of Resolution Review, where established dance writers are paired with new writers (interested in writing about dance) to cover each night of the festival. The original review on this page (and its companion review) can be found at: https://theplace.org.uk/blogs-stories/sat-18-jan
My second visit to Resolution 2025, and sadly, I must start with an apology.
A mistake on my part regarding intervals led us writers to miss the start of the last work, Six Degrees from Home, and also a later section, as house management relocated a few of us upstairs. In the circumstances, and in all good conscience, I just don’t feel I can fairly and sensibly comment on a short work that appeared to be quite complex, incorporating both words and movement. Apologies again to the creators, Divija Melally and Saili Katebe, for not being able to cover their work.
Working back, the middle piece of Saturday night’s show offered an interesting and ultimately rather scary take on East Asian family dynamics. Shiyu Lu and Haonan Ma’s Empty But Solid certainly showcased the heavy and controlling weight of convention as Shiyu Lu looked to take off in new directions, the works movement strikingly supported by an electronic score full of uncomfortable fractured scrapings and fidgety eeriness. Presented across several scenes, some rather opaque, Haonan Ma’s well-sketched authoritarian patriarch emerged as a grim figure, although the props of a table, chair and apple(s) proved somewhat confusing at times. But all four dancers were technically impressive, and some lifts, in the manner of Kenneth MacMillan, really hit home. A cracking and easily understood ending as well. It’s a work that has stayed with me far longer than I thought it would.
I have no hesitation whatsoever in declaring Casper Dillen and Small Sample Size Theatre’s Mouth Wash and Razor Blades the most exciting piece of physical theatre I have ever seen at Resolution. A teaser of a synopsis in no way prepares you for the 20 minutes of surreal and bonkers madness that ensues from a deadpan cast of 13. It is a work that deserves a longer life, and I am reluctant to reveal too much, as constant visual surprise is such a vital part of the experience. But the Waltz of the Dinosaurs will long stay with me, and I will never again enter a public toilet without considering the earnest and worrying words of wisdom regarding pickpockets. Glorious work, and I am certainly interested in what Dillen and Small Sample Size do next.