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Wiggle room

Wiggle room
MATTHEW HAWKINS appreciates an interpretation in dance of James Baldwin’s landmark novel of doomed homosexual desire

Inside Giovanni’s Room
Phoenix Dance Company, Dundee Rep

 

GIOVANNI’S ROOM is a James Baldwin novel wherein an attractive American in Paris experiences a loving liberation that is only viable within specific hospitality. He is already set to marry. Convention rears its head when his intended turns up. She is anticipating their untrammelled union. In her absence, there’s been physical compulsion: the breaching of societal chasms, in quest of same-sex spasms. 

Back in the 1950s many Americans, including writers like James Baldwin, found Paris less repressive than their homelands. The city would form an arena for sensual enlightenment and self-definition. Compromise and casualties could ensue on homecoming.

Inside Giovanni’s Room is now an intrepid full-evening work presented by Leeds-based Phoenix Dance Theatre. 

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