Lila Dance – The Hotel Experience
Written By Hannah Mulligan
Lila Dances’ ‘The Hotel Experience’, takes you on the journey of Luke (danced by Luke Brown), a man on the night before his wedding, stuck alone in a hotel, as he contemplates his past, present and future and what happens when he must leave the hotel the next morning. We go on the adventure as he ponders and re- lives experiences with friends and ex-lovers and reflects his regrets and good times.
The creatively designed set, designed by Alison Neighbour, a metal frame that acts as a bedroom, reception, bar and more, is maneuvered by the performers to create different sets in front of our very eyes. Creating silhouettes and shadows, drawing in the audience and making mystery. Scenes of love, anguish and everything in between can be seen in silhouette behind a back lit screen. A unique part of The Hotel Experience is that the performers operate lights, props and costumes all on stage, seamlessly transitioning from a bedroom to reception to night club without ever having to leave the stage or break the audience's immersion in ‘The Hotel Experience’. The performers climb and suspend from the metal frame, becoming part of the hotel itself.
There are many sections of The Hotel Experience that are incredible, but I’ll share some of my particular favourites with you. Starting with a duet between Luke and Abi (Abi Mortimer), a flirtatious section, where the two engage in a physically challenging contact duet involving a bar whilst also using double entendre and innuendo, starting with asking to his ‘cock- tail’ * wink wink *. This duet is hilariously funny and very cleverly written and gives the work a sense of humour as we’re taken on the journey of Lukes lively past. Along similar lines is the night club scene where the dancers energetically fill the stage and dance to upbeat music by Dougie Evans. One of the best things as a dancer is to see dancers on stage having fun and radiating pure enjoyment in what they’re doing – so much so it made me want to be on the stage with them!
The Hotel Experience is a contemporary physical theatre piece and so uses both movement and spoken words to tell its story. One memorable example of this is Amy’s solo (Amy Morvell), who embodies the role of the hotel cleaner, who yearns for a more glamorous and luxurious life. Admiring herself as she adorns a fur coat and sparkly shoes, checking in and reassuring herself with the audience as she does so. She sits down stage and carefully and in a way that’s so theatrically seductive it’s funny, rips off her marigolds with her teeth and flings them across the stage. Before then using Luke as an accessory for her newly imagined extravagant look, hanging off his arm as she checks herself out. Thus giving us a glimpse into the wants and desires of the hotel staff, something one never cares to think about when they go to a hotel, but perhaps maybe now we might.
In contrast, as we come to the end of the piece, we see a duet between Luke and Joe (Joe Darby), that’s beautifully calm and connected and draws the audience in. This is aided by the phenomenal light design by Lila technician Natalie Rowland, as the lights create a shadowy and serene landscape, where dancers are almost completely in the dark apart from low and back lights illuminating them as they glide through their duet.
And finally the piece ends with a poignant voiceover, that reflects on all the milestones we wish to meet.
“This wasn’t the speech I planned to make, but I’m making it anyway. At the end of your life you’ll have some numbers. Like a tally. You sneezed 250,000 times, your heart beat 42 million times. You had 2000 hangovers. You swore on half a million occasions. You broke 6 bones. You woke up in someone else's bed 65 times. You travelled a million air miles, you danced on 16 tables. You checked into 800 hotel rooms. You had 29,000 dreams and you said I love you 40,320 times. I want to be proud of these numbers and I want some of them to be as big as they can be.”
And Luke puts on his jacket, steps out the door, suitcase in hand and we just wonder. What will he do now?