Gravity-defying moves in Tempo’s quirky exploration of time

Tempo

Kalle Nio (Finland) & Fernando Melo (Sweden/Brazil)
Drama Centre Theatre
May 15, 8pm

Tempo, in music terminology and regular English usage, means “speed” or “pace,” but it comes directly from Italian where the word means simply “time”.

As the work’s title suggests, Tempo deftly combines magic, dance and physical theatre in a philosophical meditation on time. This movement work is part of the Singapore International Festival of Arts, which began on May 15. 

As the audience enters the theatre, a number of metronomes have already been set up at the downstage right corner of the stage – a visual and literal reminder of the work’s main theme.

The audience is alerted to the start of the show when one of the metronomes begins ticking loudly, then slowly another, and another. They all tick at different tempos for some time, before converging in unison. 

A voiceover enters, reading text by Finnish writer Harry Salmenniemi. A memorable question asked near the beginning is, “what is the opposite of time?”

At other points in the performance, the text ponders, and invites the audience to consider, such timeless issues as mortality and presence.  

These ideas are reinforced by striking images formed by the bodies on stage.

Performers Barbara Kanc, Winston Reynolds and Luigi Sardone move around as if gliding, their movements effortless and silent.

Reynolds, an acrobatic dance and physical theatre artist, rises from a prone position on the floor in a gravity and anatomy-defying pose, drawing some gasps from the audience. He then returns to the prone position, then rises again, as if floating between the positions. 

Repetition becomes a recurring motif throughout the work, with the performers seeming to “pause” and “rewind” time – moving into a position, the lights go out, and when they come on, the performers are back at the start of their movement sequence and performing the same over again.

Yet this is no video playback. This performance by live bodies instead reminds one of the relentless advancing of time.

At some point in the hour-long performance, the movements and ideas become variations on a theme.

One particular sequence, involving the three performers pushing a table around and taking it in turns to stand on it or wave a large black flag in a circular motion, seems to go on for too long. However, these are small quibbles in an otherwise sleek and thought-provoking work.

To pull off the stage illusions and images in Tempo, immense precision is required from the performers as well as the sound and lighting.

Together, the international team has created a piece at once quirky and serious, playful and contemplative.

In today’s current fast-paced, productivity-driven lives, such a work is indeed much needed and timely.