Leine & Roebana/Norton is a young Dutch group that came to the fore in the eyes of international critics at the last Festival de Nouvelle Danse in Montréal. Harijono Roebana (1955) and Andrea Leine (1966), both of whom have a strong training background at the Studio's Onafhankelijk Toneel, have to their credit, starting in 1989, a dozen choreographies signed as a duo, many of them in collaboration with contemporary composers from the Sound Palette group. For 'Glottisdans', the duo worked together with a third young name in Dutch choreography, Paul Selwyn Norton (1964), an author from whom both the Het Nationale Ballet and the Batsheva Sance Company have already commissioned creations. The three are united by a dance technique that hinges on a decentralised use of movement, according to which any part of the body can be a focal point of action. Let us suppose that it is an arm that initiates a shift of weight in space: the rest of the body follows the primary impulse, being carried along by the energy set in motion by the initial gesture. During which new impulses intervene that, having developed in other parts of the body, bring into play different paths of movement. This interweaving of influences is governed by a soft quality reminiscent of the kind of energy of the release technique. 'Glottisdans' consists of two parts, 'If we could only even if we could', by the duo Andrea Leine and Harijonno Roebana, and 'Sub Rosa' by Paul Selwyn Norton. The former is danced by five performers and is mounted on a series of solo interventions, duets, trios, quartets and quintets linked together by a continuous flow of energy. Giving the main impulses to the movement of the body in space is, in all performers, the head. As in the first solo, jousting on a dance with a circular energetic timbre: it is a choreography that favours contact with the ground, borrowing certain evolutions of break dance (hand spins, low one-footed spins) and dissolving its abrupt accents in the light of the energetic quality described above. In the course of the piece, however, each performer gives his dance a specific timbre, accelerating the impulses, stiffening the arms, accentuating the off-axis movements of the pelvis. Accompanying 'If we could only even if we could' is an electronic score specially composed by Han Otten and Wieber de Boer (Sound Palette) who, having followed the rehearsals of the performance, have signed a music that respects the choreography, living with its own rhythms and timing. "Sub Rosa" by Paul Selwyn Norton is a duo between a man and a woman that, although centred on a decentralised technique whose principles are similar to those on which the Leine/Roebana duo works, proposes a more angular style of movement. Juxtaposed without dependency with Gavin Bryars' "Vita Nova", "Sub Rosa" is described by the author as a kind of poetic "torture garden in which two figures use the body as an instrument to determine their reality and the reality of the other". In effect, the two, when they meet, measure, intertwine, grope, and touch each other with a curious and estranged attitude of mutual attention.
