When you hear the word OCD Love, you think of love as being obsessive. LEV Dance Company, presented by Banff Centre has taken this concept and created a dark twisted production. OCD Love is dark and performed in shadows. It is an examination of small movements and looks at dance as a system. It is intriguing and holds a degree of fascination to it, but is a bit too caught up in its own presentation. Creators Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar are so focused on the movement in details that they lose sight of the overall production. The work is so much in shadow that they forget about creating excitement within the dance.
The dancers are costumed in black, and lighting design by Thierry Dreyfus puts them in spotlights on the black box stage at the Eric Harvey Theatre. They move to pulsing sound design by Ori Lichtik, their movement often depicting a small part of a larger system. The choreography is repetitive and sometimes spastic, depicting that type of love in shadows. Sometimes the movement is slow and too subtle, but there is no doubt about the physicality of the dancers and their ability to isolate movement within their body.
LEV Dance Company is fascinating to watch but OCD Love is a little to caught up in the process of exploring art instead of the perhaps keeping an audience in mind. But the richness of the physicality of LEV dancers is always something worth watching.
OCD Love was presented by Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. Check out their events and programming here.
Photo Credit: Ron Kedmi