Within This Dust, A Collection of Pieces Inspired by the 9/11 Attack

Within This Dust Brochure-image-Credit-Maria-Fal

Within This Dust, A collection of pieces inspired by the 9/11 attacks at The Carriageworks, reviewed by Samrana Hussain …

Earth to earth, ashes to ashes and finally dust to dust; it’s where we all begin and end. Death is not an easy subject to explore, even more so when it’s on a mass and unimaginable scale. But ‘Within This Dust’ at the Carriageworks Theatre at The Electric Press achieves this in a sensitive and poignant manner.

Inspired by Richard Drew’s controversial photograph of a man falling between the twin towers, Smallpetitklein’s thoughtfully executed triple-bill leaves you with an indefinable sense of sadness and loss.

Using audio recordings, film, animation and on-stage speech as well as dance, the hypnotic performance honours the extreme horror of the attacks and those who fell to earth. On a darkened and empty stage the stillness is broken only by a young girl hidden amongst a spot-lit heap of white letters. She clasps and grasps desperately at the letters, as they runaway from her.

The pace of the scene gives us time to contemplate its significance – letters to loved ones, or the office letters; they were the only things to survive the falling towers. Not a single desk, table or chair was left intact; leaving billions of particles of dust floating into the air.

Two dancers enter the stage to perform a live duet. Mirroring, gliding, lifting and melting weightlessly into each other; it’s a dance of goodbyes never said, farewells lost in time and space. But never forgotten by those left behind. The dance ends as hundreds of pieces of tiny paper float down and the entwined dancers reach towards the light. It’s a haunting scene which can’t fail to give you goosebumps or bring tears to your eyes.

And the final scene, Falling Man, juxtaposes the freedom of flying against the terror of falling. Romain Guion’s dancing in this scene never fails to impress, with perfect lines and symmetry, there’s more than a hint of yoga in much of his movements.
His fingers grasp at the light, but the descent never stops until the unavoidable end.

The dance is performed amidst smoke and is accompanied by narration based on an article by Tom Junod.

Not only is this an elegy to the estimated 200 people who died in this way on 9/11, but it’s also a sensitive reminder that it happened in the most ordinary of circumstances in the most innocuous of places.