Charlie Khalil Prince’s the body symphonic is a testament to the body’s capacity to carry and resist. Amongst minimal staging — a guitar resting on a keffiyeh and a scattering of technical equipment — he performs rituals of motion and sound that leave an ache in the chest and a vibration under the skin.
Joined by Joss Turnbull on percussion, together they sculpt a sonic landscape that feels deliberately fragmented. Moving seamlessly between playing and moving, it’s as if he’s navigating the disjointed experience of remembering; journeying through a swirl of blurred memories that appear, expand, and reform.
Prince’s stamping feet (reminiscent of dabke rhythms?) blend with distorted loops of voice, string and drum, fracturing the atmosphere in the theatre. Reverberating through the earth, each strike feels like a claim to presence, a scream against erasure, an attempt to locate oneself within a ruptured lineage. They seem to insist: We are here. We will endure. Even at the end of the performance, footsteps continue to echo in the darkness, a stark reminder that existence can never be silent.
Nicola Mitropoulou
When Charlie Khalil Prince smacks the floor, the sound rushes into us like cold water in the early morning. Its shock is an entrance into the world of risk, and a reminder of our short tether to life. In his solo the body symphonic, the Lebanese-born, Netherlands-based choreographic artist plumbs the seismic through a study of contrasts. Some movements waft across minutes, holding court alongside subtle eruptions that splinter a body caught between destruction and regeneration. Prince builds clouds of sound with a guitar, a delay pedal, a violin bow, and a microphone, and Arabic melodies are woven through a tapestry of notes that stretch for miles.
Joined onstage by the musician Joss Turnbull, Prince uses his body as both a tuning fork and a dagger, contorting traditional dances into atonal chains of movement. History dissolves in ribbons of uttering movements, and we feel the chasm that, when hard meets soft, opens up beneath our feet.
Amit Noy
Charlie Khalil Prince casually enters the stage, picks up a wired microphone, and starts swinging it over his head, creating an oppressive sound that constantly overbears us.
Kneeling in the spotlight, Prince rotates on his axis with his legs fixed – evoking a sense of time passing.
Later, contorting limbs twist around his own frame, creating mental images of wounded bodies incapable of shielding themselves.
At an indistinct moment, musician Joss Turnbull informally bridges the gap between us and the performance by entering the stage and picking up a drum. With Prince’s sharp stomps, abrupt turns, and Turnbull’s tingling fingers on the drum, the body symphonic masterfully blends music with dance, fusing functional choreography with expressive movement.
An unexpectedly hopeful interlude emerges from Prince embodying the symphonic quality of a guitar, playing it first and foremost for himself.
Although scenes frequently cut short, the piece moves fluidly from one phase to another. It keeps slipping through the viewers’ fingers, who cannot grasp it. Everything is to be seen, witnessed and heard. Though the piece is intimately introspective, we are allowed onto the outskirts of the performer’s world to peek inside.
Kärt Koppel