Looks terrific – stylishly designed, vividly played
Justitia
2007
Justitia
2007
‘Looks terrific – stylishly designed, vividly played’
THE GUARDIAN
A daring, sharp-edged piece of physical dance theatre, Justitia delves into the depths of our justice system, inviting the audience on an investigative journey as it unravels the multiple truths concealed behind a gripping crime story.
In a film-like replay of events, the audience witnesses the action from different perspectives. A verdict must be reached – was it murder, manslaughter or self-defence?
‘Powerful choreography with that rare commodity – genuine theatrical appeal’
THE STAGE
‘A riveting piece of dance theatre. Vardimon has some killer moves and a cast to die for’
METRO
CREDITS
CONCEPT, DIRECTION AND CHOREOGRAPHY
Jasmin Vardimon MBE
CREATED WITH & PERFORMED BY
Paul Blackman, Luke Burrough, Tim Casson, Christine Gouzelis, Victoria Fox, Athanasia Kanellopoulou, YunKyung Song & Jasmin Vardimon MBE
ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR & DRAMATURGY
Guy Bar-Amotz
SCRIPT WRITER
Rebecca Lenkiewicz
COSTUME & SET DESIGN
Merle Hensel
LIGHTING DESIGN
Chahine Yavroyan
SOUNDTRACK DESIGN & EDIT
Ohad Fishof
PRODUCTION MANAGER
Steve Wald
CAMPAIGN PHOTOGRAPHY
Ben Harries
PRODUCTION PHOTOGRAPHY
Alastair Muir
PROMO VIDEO
Guy Bar-Amotz
LENGTH
95 minutes plus one interval
PREMIERE
2007 (UK Tour)
FUNDED BY
Arts Council England
COMMISSIONED BY
Sadler’s Wells, Gardner Arts and Hall for Cornwall
SUPPORTED BY
The Lowry, The National Theatre Studio and Esmee Fairbairn
ARTICLES & REVIEWS
Powerful choreography with that rare commodity – genuine theatrical appeal
A riveting piece of dance theatre. Vardimon has some killer moves and a cast to die for
Vardimon’s dancers are athletic and heartfelt, distinctive in movement and characterisation
Visual poetry… Every one of Vardimon’s dancers is tremendous
I enjoyed the first iteration of Justitia and with this revival, Vardimon has succeeded in making improvement, further enhancing a slick and fascinating work that is superbly choreographed and performed. It is innovative, gripping, physical and theatrical drama that keeps us guessing until the end.
A mellifluous medley of dance, text and theatre, Jasmin Vardimon’s Justitia combines adroit strenuosity and innovative storytelling to present a thrilling meditation on themes of truth, culpability, justice and perceived realities. Vardimon’s experimental format – which gumptiously employs choreography and speech in tandem throughout – proves an apt vehicle for showcasing the thrilling narrative at hand, steering the characters through a cascade of arresting travails and permitting ostensibly conflicting tones like levity and gravitas to permeate the story concurrently.
Justitia may be demanding and performers and audience, but it is absorbing and gripping from start to finish. Strong images come thick and fast. In a work full of views and differing perspectives, Vardimon keeps the biggest twist, and the truth, hidden until the end. When it’s revealed, it’s more painful than anything you dared think.
If you are like me and have ever wondered how a crime story would be transposed into dance, Jasmin Vardimon’s Justitia is the show for you.
Justitia, Vardimons new work, centres on a court case. From what Id heard I was expecting a whodunnit? It turns out to be more of a whyshedoit?, but is no less intriguing for that… this is a clever idea, bravely carried out.
At ten to twenty pounds a ticket Jasmin Vardimon’s Justitia was excellent value for money: a must-see dance company. 5/5
Justitia opens with a spine-chillingly beautiful scene which sums up the theatrical forces at play in Jasmin Vardimon’s excellent courtroom dance drama.
The ever-refreshing, ever-entertaining programme by Sadler’s Wells at their central London outpost, the Peacock Theatre, continues with Justitia by Jasmin Vardimon Company, a “gripping courtroom dance drama” that is brutal and darkly comic in equal measures, set on a grand revolving stage.
An extravaganza of impressive physicality, a formidable set design and both harrowing and hilarious theatre; Jasmin’s dance theatre makes you stand up and listen, and Justitia is no exception.
This work is daring in its goal-setting and searingly successful in its means. The dancing serves to expand the emotion, tension and the penetration of Vardimon’s concepts about our psychology.
In her latest dance theatre piece, Justitia, Jasmin Vardimon matches narrative clarity with astonishing visual imagery in a balance that is notoriously difficult to achieve. Where the text in much dance theatre relies on a clumsy mix of memories and observations devised by the performers, Justitia wisely uses a script, by writer Rebecca Lenkiewicz, which provides a solid structure for Vardimon’s movement to enhance, explore and illuminate.
This extraordinary piece takes us to the edge of the modern dance genre. At times it plunges into legitimate theatre: each performer plays, not simply a representative type, but a real, well-delineated character with a name and a personal narrative.
The medium of dance theatre pushed all boundaries when Jasmin Vardimon’s Justitia was performed at Newport Riverfront last night.
A captivating crime narrative lies at the core of Justitia, almost equal parts theatre and dance. Not so much a whodunnit, as a “how did it happen?”, the piece explored a man’s murder in his best friend’s home, apparently perpetrated by the latter’s wife.
Over the last ten years I have been watching Jasmin’s works grow from their beginnings as intense duets and trios to their present incarnations as large ensemble works, the latest production being Justitia – located in and around a courtroom.
Jasmin Vardimon’s works belong to this hybrid kind of performance in which the genres lose their importance. Theatre, dance, text and new media make up a colorful mosaic. Justitia epitomizes all the elements which persistently return in Vardimon’s works, supreme above them the body, which exposes and at the same time celebrates.