BOLD, beautiful and fascinating, Sutra fuses art, dance and martial arts into a show which will lift your soul and leave you catching your breath.
After 90 performances in 29 cities across 18 countries, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s production makes its triumphant return to London’s Sadler’s Wells theatre.
Featuring kung fu monks from China’s Shaolin Temple, music from composer Szymon Brzóska and a minimalist set designed by acclaimed artist Antony Gormley, Sutra looks and feels like a meticulously raked Zen garden.
Using 16 plain, wooden boxes, which the 17 monks leap, jump and high kick out of and into, both the gentle spirituality of the Buddhist faith and the formidable power of the Shaolin tradition are set in stark contrast.
It is this juxtaposition of the monk’s fighting skills with the peaceful non-violence of Buddhism which informs the show’s performances and, combined with Brzóska’s stirring score, the back flips, shadow boxing and somersaults are infused with a mystical energy.
The show opens with an inquisitive Westerner (Ali Ben Lofti Thabet) faces a young monk, Shi Yandong.
After trying to communicate with each through gestures the child leads the man, and the audience, on a quest of understanding both the fastidiously disciplined martial art and the alien culture the monks embody.
Along the path to realisation, the coffin-like boxes are arranged into rows, stacked one on top of each other and brought tumbling to the ground like giant dominoes.
Their function is miraculous, transforming from ordinary pine boxes into temple arches, an impenetrable wall and even a collosal lotus flower upon which Yandong perches like a little Buddha.
On occasions trapped inside the claustrophobic boxes, the ritualism and confinements of monastic life is also cleverly realised.
For those searching for a balls to the wall Shaolin showdown will find themselves disappointed.
But it is in Sutra’s meditative exploration of kung fu’s ancient spirituality and art, rather than just its physicality, which imbues the show with emotional and intellectual depth.
Sutra. Sadler's Wells, Rosebery Avenue, London. Until March 26. 020 7863 8198 or visit sadlerswells.com
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