NO RESPITE 1992 –1993
No Respite is an ancient game of courtship and battle with no winner. The three players are hurled back and forth between two states of being: at one pole of the playing field, a solitary struggle to hold onto the distorted throne of self sufficiency and power; at the opposite pole, two players are caught n a claustrophobic confrontation with each other, locked into repetitive rhythms and gestures of fraught communication, perpetuating cyclic patterns of mistrust, jealousy and possession, only to be broken by the intrusion of the third player. Frozen moments of suspicion are stretched to an almost unbearable tension as the players test each other’s endurance, until a furious explosion erupts, a frantic jive with risk ensues, or the players plunge into the dangerous waters of the gulf between the two poles.
A game of endurance and desire set in a fantasy medieval courtyard. A surrealist, contemporary fairytale with clacking shoes, Chinese robes, backwards furniture and mad, anti-acrobats.
NO RESPITE was funded by the arts council of England, and selected for the 1992 Biennale Rencontres Choreographiques Internationales de Bagnolet 1992. The piece premiered in Dance Umbrella 1991, and toured in the UK, Vienna, Italy, Hungary, France, and Germany in 1992, with support from The British Council.
PRESS:
“Yolande Snaith creates dance works which transport the viewer back in time. She builds ultra-contemporary dance theatre pieces around the rituals, manners and essential look and feel of the chosen period …….No respite is full of strikingly painterly images and disparate but physically charged episodes.”
Sophie Constanti, The Guardian
‘There’s a dark and powerful sense of fairytale at work in this piece . . . glances speak eloquently of complicity and despair while the rhythms of the choreography – clogs clacking against floor, cards slapping on wood, bodies thudding against bodies – cue the work’s shift from watchful flippancy to dangerous anger. No Respite is an impeccably controlled and executed piece’
The Independent, London.
“Yolande Snaith has the ability to assimilate the essence of different art forms without laboring their presence. Unlike much of what is labeled ‘dance-theatre’, she produces work that is genuinely informed by an understanding of many practices, from design to fine art and cultural history”
Dance Theatre Journal
“Tension is Rife, in the subtleties of movement, echoed by the soundtrack, reinforced by the design – just like a good wine, from first sniff to aftertaste, a glorious experience and one to be savored”
Mary Brennon, The herald, Scotland
“This trio has a driving, forceful energy but is also suffused with a haunting, atmospheric quality”
Time Out, London
“Snaith’s most intriguing talent is in her ability to assimilate history and fantasy in her work, and build these ‘other worlds’ to tempt the audiences imagination. No Respite has a particular historical intimacy. Snaith manages to portray a mental battle not only with emotions, but also a with a personal place within the world and its history.”
Dance Theatre Journal