Jasmin Vardimon: Park, Sadler's Wells

Israeli choreographer and Sadler’s Wells Associate Artist Jasmin Vardimon is renowned for her hard-hitting social observation and explosive movement vocabulary. Here she revives and revivifies her 2005 PARK, a keen-eyed perspective on modern city life.
Less a story than a series of snapshots, the piece focuses on the possibilities for escape in a dilapidated city park, introducing characters from young lovers to buskers, an old lady, a homeless man, a National Front-style protester and a graffiti artist. 
Not one to spare the audience her anti-fascist, feminist agenda, Vardimon’s PARK has been called ‘sharp, funny and cruel,’ weaving small intimacies into violence and social commentary. Vardimon was a psychological interviewer during her Israeli military service, and this left her with a gift for character illustration and realism, which her talented dancers are more than equipped to portray.
If that all sounds rather relentless, the themes are liberated by Vardimon’s exuberant choreography. Seeming to draw on breakdance and acrobatics as much as contemporary dance, the movement is funky and athletic, swinging, leaping and twisting low across the park’s broken fountains and wire fences.
The piece is set to an eclectic soundtrack including Frankie Goes to Hollywood and Brian Eno, against an authentically grimy urban set. Fuelling the current trend for mixed art forms, Vardimon is an innovative cinematographer, and this revival will feature new imaging.
Confrontational, unpredictable and humane, PARK is an early mark in Vardimon’s career that well bears repeating.
Note: Sadler’s Wells warns this show contains nudity and scenes of an adult nature, no under 5s allowed.