Horda -- Central European Dance Company (Budapest)

Performance last night at the local cultural center auditorium, place about 60% full, I would say.  Eight dancers, 4 men 4 women.  Some of the men were TALL, like about 6' 4" for the tallest, easily 6' for another, not something you expect with dancers.

Abstract , mostly, i dont know dance vocabulary so it is next to impossible for me to describe.  Not classical, but not just athletics.  The momentum of the piece was toward communality (is that a word?)--a physical loaf of bread being first grudgingly shared, then fought over, then finally  genuinely shared      mixed in was a basin of water which was at first a source of mystery and magic, then a foot bath, a baptismal font, a focus of marital strife, then something akin to marital bliss.     A couple of times one of the male dancers sat on the edge of the stage and delivered a kind of political pep talk to the audience, no discernible language, but full of passion and conviction.  There was an extensive pas de deux, a couple of pilobolus-type groupings, but mostly it was ensemble work, and I caught myself marveling at how fluidly the team executed extremely complicated maneuvers, especially when three of the men would be dancing with one of the women, with her being lifted by one, caught and twisted by another, dropped onto a third, twirled back to number one, and so on, all without repetition of moves.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOeMiCfQ6O8     pieces of HORDA which I saw last night

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKNe8Lge9uI        Nutcracker, rehearsal