Woodbeat

The sound of wood
Not only the scenery caused enthusiasm, but also the wood figures created by Michael Lurse, which again and again suddenly emerged from the wood chips and disappeared again. There were wooden figures that looked like animals. They looked for a play fellow, hopped around, made merry sounds or balanced on the tree disks. By the figures Lurse represented not only feelings, but produced also them in the small spectators. The children were all absorbed by each balancing act, were frightened when the wooden logs fell down or were pleased about the funny invitations.
Apart from the visual aspects however the performance was a special sound experience. Lurse and his colleague, the Percussionist Andrés Cabrera took children as well as adults to a world of the wooden sounds: The wood whined, wood logs were struck together, the wood chips rustled and the figures cleared their ways with knocking and hammering through the wooden landscape.
…A piece of rumpled paper fluttered in the wind and small wood logs became towers. Al-ready the walk to the seats obtained first impressions with a small avenue of trees.
…With “WOODBEAT” under the direction of Barbara Kölling the HELIOS Theater shows an-other wonderful performance for the very young. It is part of the county wide project “theatre from the beginning” and was developed in co-operation with the Théâtre Jeune Public from Strasbourg. Already in the rehearsal process kindergarten groups were involved in the so called "experimentation fields".
And the premiere of “WOODBEAT” shows that this concept worked perfectly.
Westfälischer Anzeiger, Hamm, February 25th, 2008