Ockhams Razor are a stunning aerial theatre company who combine circus and visual theatre. In 2012-13 Ruth toured with the company, performing a new score by Graham Fitkin for lever and wire strung harps and choir. The music is strong and complex, building up rhythmic layers and sinuous textures.
‘dazzling aerial theatre’ The Independent
‘physically thrilling’ The Sunday Times
‘The London International Mime Festival is this year dominated by circus, if on a different scale. Ockham’s Razor is a company of five aerialists whose work feels very fresh. Their latest piece, Not Until We Are Lost, is a promenade affair, the action playing out beside and above the milling spectators. At first, thrust into the black cube that is the new Platform Theatre behind King’s Cross, one doesn’t know where to look. Perhaps at the spotlit harpist plucking a golden clarsach in the corner?
When, suddenly, a bare foot appears by my ear, I realise I’ve unwittingly been leaning against a tall, glass chimney lined with paper, from which a person is scrabbling to emerge. Before long both she and the scrunched paper have comically disappeared, as if sucked down a waste disposal. It makes for a lively start. Major items of gym apparatus slowly come into focus. A giant rack provides a mountainside up which all five performers labour, hands and feet tied to their neighbour’s – a test of amicable cooperation. Each then whooshes back downhill as if on the Cresta Run.
Over it all, Graham Fitkin’s music throws a glimmering veil, building to a tingling climax as harpist Ruth Wall overlays loops of her own playing. Equally joyous is the choral flashmob that breaks out in the dark. A magical show, from people with more than sawdust between the ears.’ Jenny Gilbert The Independent
‘ The piece is a promenade performance for an audience of about 125 people. One of its best features is the British composer Graham Fitkin’s score, played live by the Scottish harpist Ruth Wall. Her delicate web of sound is enhanced by a choir whose members mingle among us, singing mainly in Latin. The effect is surprising and quietly magical.
The same could be said of the entire performance. It’s structured as a series of discrete, poetic scenes around the themes of quest and trust.’ The Times
