In a historical case of confinement at a time of crisis, paintings from the National Gallery were evacuated to a Welsh slate mine in 1941 to keep them safe from Luftwaffe bombs. Winged Bull in the Elephant Case dramatises the journey of one of those paintings. Directed by photographer Robin Friend and choreographed by Wayne McGregor, this 30-minute film – first broadcast in 2018 – tours the gallery and mine to reveal a collection of artists performing among the canvases and slate.
There’s a semblance of story buried in there somewhere, but it has the feel of someone listing an eclectic assortment of people they’d like to work with and giving everyone a slot, whether ballet legend Alessandra Ferri, poet Isaiah Hull or pianist Joanna MacGregor, who plays Beethoven in a nod to the wartime concerts that took place at the gallery.
Bonebreaking flex dancer Bonetics is our winged bull trapped in the mine. A master of pretzel-like contortion, his elbows flare behind him in sharp arrows. Composer Tunde Jegede pulls urgent notes from his cello while water ripples in the cave – these subterranean parts of the film are the most atmospheric and strikingly shot.
In the gallery, the frozen flesh of the figures on the walls – such as Titian’s Bacchus and Ariadne, suspended mid-revelry – is given elastic life by McGregor’s exceptional dancers (although their sober movement displays finely tuned tension and stretch rather than louche bacchanal). Botis Seva’s krump-inspired choreography has more of the percussive attack of battle, the five dancers like bolts of energy surging through the stiff rooms. What this seriously sombre work lacks in its sense of quest or lucid probing of themes, it makes up for as a showcase of awesome physicality in unexpected settings.
