Last night’s programme at Resolution! was overflowing with physical humour. Clever and engaging, these three groups: taciturn, (Zoe Cobb) The Artful Badger, and Ivan Blackstock delivered unique perspectives to the everyday event, infusing and delighting the audience with creative performance.

Taciturn could upstage and deliver some comical lessons to all airline staff: based around health and safety guidelines, this trio demonstrates what to do when your parachute fails, what to do in an earthquake, how to search for a bomb and, finally, how to take a punch. The physical prowess of these three dancers lends itself to what was approaching slapstick comedy, but with enough movement charm to engage with contemporary dance. There were artful transitions between the comedic and the sensitive, the suspended and the rushed; voiceovers, music and vocalization created and carried the scenarios they seamlessly developed. Energetic and engaging, this piece was over far too quickly, though it’s best to go out with a bang. (sorry)

Although not strictly contemporary dance, the second offering of the night performed by another trio: The Artful Badger toyed with the experience of a new bird entering into the world, developing relationships within and around itself. Personalities shaped these dancers as the work progressed, and the physical depiction of this experience, paralleled with the human experience, was touching and often quite comical. Demonstrating curiosity, repetition, camaraderie and even jealousy, these birds bounced and pecked around one another and toward the audience, ruffling their ample feathers in delight and frustration. Though the soundscape was minimal, this work contained a delicate nuance that was emotionally warming.

In the final work for the evening, Ivan Blackstock examined the humourous possibilities of things that go bump in the night. Disturbed by the sleeping habits of the woman next to him, his frustration built into a scene reminiscent of Bedknobs and Broomsticks – nightclothes, jeans and hoodies bounding around the stage with personality and cunning. This extended scene, entertaining in itself, was somewhat two-dimensional, though the antics were clearly humanising, and the empathy of the situation was engaging and enriching for the audience. The movement vocabulary was set to impress, these obviously talented dancers performing complex movement phrases with impressive ease. Blackstock is clearly a choreographer who likes to entertain, and with his band of black-unitard-cum-clothing helpers, he certainly succeeded, his exit littered with numerous bouts of applause.

Eighty-one works form the line up for the Resolution! platform, a chance for new and newer choreographers to engage with creating work through a supportive network of people. The mixed bill offered in last night’s programme formed an eclectic focus for artistic merit, appealing to three different tastes in choreographic creation and execution.

Leading was Arc’s A Sense of Beauty. A work appealing to and using the unique physiology of each dancer, the piece occurs mainly within the confines of one structure, created by two ladders with an adjoining board. The piece was emotionally endearing, creating characterizations through music, dance style and costume. Such a varying array of ideas had its charm, but unfortunately felt one-dimensional at times, the dancers pushed toward one movement dynamic within the confines of the concept. The live instrumentalist, while adding interest, had a confusing part in the storyline and once extracted, showed no more involvement in what was occurring on stage. The inclusive nature of the work in the end was heart-warming and demonstrates potential for all bodies in the realm of dance.

Tara D’Arquian’s May Our Bodies Become Bodies Again arrived at an emotional opposite for the first piece, a testament to how mixed these nights can be. The audience is used as a visual perspective pivot, technical hands change a frame that sets up a "room", a movement phrase is repeated over and over, infrequently embellished on but continuously portrayed with the same intensity. With perspectives changing, the story for the audience grows, the dancers on a set loop that could either represent days passing, relationship continuity, or several different couples. There were The Truman Show-esque moments created through this repetition, a hypnotic sameness that was effective overall. When the set finally stopped changing, other dancers were added, mimicking costume and phrase but performing with differing details. The splash of the different was welcome, but confused the unfolding nature of the story. Still, there was enough visual intrigue and reassurance of what could be seen to create a piece that was visually compelling.

The third and final piece of the night was an unrelenting portrayal of labour under the sun, demonstrated to the backdrop of Sicillian folk songs. Sounding Motion’s Naturale pared back choreography, costume and music to create the insistent pace to coincide with the concept. The hypnotic development of movement achieved an overall movement rhythm for the work, though the continuously developing solos appeared to be somewhat calculated and were only punctuated with a few (more satisfying) moments of unity. The live musicians were divided on stage causing a split focus, and this coupled with the split within the dancers was prone to create an excess of activity. A smaller space may have developed the intimacy that lacked in this piece, connecting the soulfulness of the Sicillian lyrics, the musicians and dancers on a more coherent level.

The diversity of the works shown as Wednesday’s edition of Resolution! demonstrated the assortment of ideas forming in the minds of a creative hub of budding choreographers. The complexity of structures and concepts beginning to be realized in these works has the potential to distil into something very compelling. In the spirit of works in progress, this mixed bag has shown varying strength in physical, emotional and conceptual ideas and continues to resound how exciting this dance platform can be.

Well-known for his classic adaptations, Matthew Bourne has once again embraced the opportunity to recreate a fairy tale: Sleeping Beauty. Claiming a Tchaikovsky ballet for the third time running, Bourne has streamlined this story into a gothic retelling, adding whimsical elements to delight and surprise the audience.

Originally choreographed in 1890 by Marius Petipa, Sleeping Beauty was then considered a technical venture of epic proportions. Narrowing the lens of the story, Bourne created token gestures referencing original movements, but reinvents and appropriates the solos at will. Instead of a ballroom filled with people, the audience is given a room of Fairies, bestowing their gifts to delight the child in the dark of night. In a delightful twist, the Lilac Fairy emerges surprisingly as a dominant male, a commanding and protective spirit for the child.

Most notable was Bourne’s alteration of characterisations. No longer is Aurora in the sidelines of her own story, but is represented as a willful and engaging child demonstrated through the clever use of puppetry. An endearing scene with the child Aurora being chased around the room by her nurse allows for the believable development of Aurora into an adult, one curious and rebellious enough to prick her finger on an enchanted flower.

If baby puppet Aurora dominated and delighted the audience in act one, act two’s surprise was the arrival of the evil Carabosse’s son, Caradoc. Rivaling the love Aurora had found in her family’s gardener Leo, Caradoc attempts to make Aurora his own, intending to claim her life as he takes her as his own. Thwarting his plan, Leo is only able to penetrate the gates of the house and survive the sleep through the mercy of Christopher Marney as the Lilac Fairy, who is all gothic grandeur, possessing hidden vampiric talent. These modern inflections are what allow Bourne’s adaptation to re-contextualise the story itself, cleverly providing sound solutions to holes in the tale (how would Leo live through one hundred years without being enchanted?).

Though large-scale scenes are avoided as a general rule in this work, there was still some surprising alternatives. Aurora’s sixteenth birthday, occurring in 1911 was, with the aid of talented designer Lez Brotherston, an Edwardian explosion of waltz and ‘The Castle Walk’. Equally stimulating was “the land of the sleepwalkers”, a clever use of blindfolded dancers under enchantment allowing for the continuation of Aurora as an active dancer rather than as a passive character.

Those who prefer a true take on Tchaikovsky’s ballet may be disappointed by the alterations Bourne has undertaken, but in doing so Bourne has recreated, spliced and spiced up the original. Focussed around the central story, contextualized to present day, Bourne has evolved the fairytale to create something engaging and applicable to audiences who see the true value and timelessness of a good fairytale.

Freedom, Jasmin Vardimon’s new work is a hard-hitting overload of scenarios, exploring what it is that creates freedom for the individual, ultimately posing the suggestion that this concept may only be possible in the imagination. Intriguing in concept, the actuality of this idea seemed to spill forth in a hazy, convoluted way, often muddying scenarios which had, at first, seemed clearer.

A promising beginning, Vardimon (in collaboration with Guy Bar-Amotz) created a set which resembled a forest, abstractly constructed using pipes and greenery. The atmosphere in itself was effective, and formed an interesting point of collision for incoming vignettes both adapting to and contrasting with the environment. Music blasts forth and permeates the set, energising the dancers with a popular mix from John Lennon to Led Zeppelin.

In her signature style, Vardimon’s movement style is virtuosic and powerful. Dancers toss themselves around the stage, and even in quieter moments strut with a sense of purpose. This movement style lends itself to duets that are mesmerizing in their physical and emotive gravity. In one instance, a couple pull toward one another and push one another away, a convincing display of freedom through passion. These explorations of freedom are tokens that there was some deeper choreographic exploration on the theme of freedom, though not evenly along all avenues.

Entertaining in small chunks, there were a few too many moments of repetitious uncertainty. In one episode, a girl comes on stage, playfully whispering, “I want to… tell you… a story… it’s about… ” Though this scene repeats itself constantly through the piece, it hardly develops, and the inefficiency of language (and thus a barrier to freedom?) is not strong enough to thoroughly convince the audience of the idea.

These vignettes continue, though demonstrating no further connectivity. Many that are revisited are seen through a darker shade, and antagonistic take on the initial idea. An effective form for a longer development, the length and depth of these explorations did not do the dancers justice. The scenarios became too many and too non-sensical, often self-defeating.

While exciting to see a performance where the dancers really moved, the overarching form disrupted the power in the work. Vardimon’s movement vocabulary remains exciting and vibrant, but in a structure so dissonant, one can’t help but leave a little disappointed.

Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s work En Atendant is a mindful, peaceful, and simple work where each movement is a resonating hum in accord with her conceptual decisions. Consistently inspired by music, Keersmaeker has in previous works played with music by The Beatles, Mahler, Coltrane, and Reich, but in En Atendant, Keersmaeker has moved further back in history, to the late 14th Century, a musical period known as Ars Subtilior, a polyphonic form based on dissonance and contrast.

True to form, Keersmaeker has used these complex musical forms to create a choreographic language that is both pedestrian and rich in abstraction. Though her development process is exacting and articulate, the end result is as meditative as the musical score, movement concurrently growing and receding with the ebb and flow of the music, led and abandoned by live performers on stage. Neither music or dance creates an entire piece, but there are stages within the work where one element overlaps and diminishes another. Neither is dominant, yet both are equally responsible for the propulsion behind the work.

In its initial incarnation, the work took place outdoors at dusk, in the courtyard of a monastery. The stage as Sadler's Wells has been well-manipulated to form a similar impression, the light fading to the back of the stage, the floor stripped bare, and a single rustic wooden bench for the musicians. The dancers, clothed in simple blacks, move with a solemn grace which exemplifies the exactingness of the movement.

The most physically exciting part of the work occurs when a line of dancers “explode” into simultaneous movement, forming trios and pairs, interlinking, shifting and moving through one another and the space. Individuality amongst the group, but not enough to break it is a fragile yet effective visual delight.

To create a piece which is calming and sophisticated, yet not boring, is a difficult line to create. Keersmaeker can teeter on the edge, but perseverance and understanding are well rewarded, for when you yourself become quieter, enjoying the movement and musical vocabulary that this choreographer can offer, an enticing and mysterious world await to be experienced.
 

Part narrative, part history lesson, Eddie Ladd and Judith Roberts in their work Gaza/Blaenannerch examine the Palestine and Israeli conflict with surprising artistic sensitivity. By paralleling Wales and Palestine by way of the struggle for an independent identity, these Welsh creators connect these countries and histories, allowing them both an objective and subjective standpoint on the situation. Seamlessly both choreographer and director navigate between movement and dialogue, developing a visual narrative with words, embellished and built upon using sections of anguished and physically penetrable movement.

Eddie Ladd has a gift of presenting honest movement. Establishing such a transparency renders her body a mirror for feeling. By manipulating a configuration of rocks, Ladd used these props as anchoring points for the development of the piece, progressive milestones that gradually reveal more of the work. This skillful unfolding of a non-linear narrative is what keeps this work interesting. Though it’s easy to become bogged down with the gravity and enormity of information in the piece, there are moments, breaks, where “lessons” occur, the information within the piece is examined from a different viewpoint, dissecting the pace of the work. In one example, Ladd lists “Acetone” at the top of a blackboard, and “Zionism” on the bottom. Explaining how these concepts relate to the overall structure feeds audience curiosity, and placates the intellectual and historical buffs through artistic ingenuity.

If this piece sounds technical, you’re getting the right sort of image. The history of the Palestine struggle, and the subsequent tone of the current situation is the backbone of everything that is delivered in this work. The encouraging thing is that it is unnecessary for a strong grounding in history or politics to interpret and appreciate what Ladd and Roberts state. Flecks of humour, of ignorance, or speculation pepper the work and filter this genre from educational lecture to physical theatre. Roberts, playing the role of the director displays a sounding point for Ladd to vocally move toward and physically respond to, balancing on piles of rocks, crawling up chalk-boards and giving her body in to simple yet weighted movement.

What the piece lacks in virtuosity, it gains in uniqueness. For someone looking for dance, this work may seem somewhat lacking in movement, but for choreographic and narrative development, physical strength and complexity this work possessed a compelling depth that cannot be overlooked. Do not be put off, but encouraged by the subject matter. History isn’t only for the classroom.
 

Mono, Itamar Serussi’s first full-length work performed at The Place, is a sixty-minute wander through the fragmentation of one man’s thoughts. Inspired by the experience of buying a stroller for his newly-born twins, Serussi was struck by the phrase “in three clicks from mono to duo”, paralleling this with his life. As such, this work explores the diversifying and coming together of experiences, and how this coming together can create something new and exciting.

Robotic yet sensuous, Serussi’s dancers possess an uncanny ability to inhabit an abundance of states, allowing the body to become a forum for a kaleidoscope of textures. After performing mechanical movements, dancers began to isolate and ripple their bodies, creating a mesmerizing sequence where the dancers seem neither human nor other. The audience is maintained at a distance as the dancers glance, move to, and freeze away from those that watch them. The space created is a disjointed mish-mash of ideas, concurrent stories that collide at given musically-cued moments.

These relationships are highlights of the piece, developing some sense of connectedness in amongst the diversity of movement. At times the activity occurring can be overwhelming, blinking offers the chance to miss movement sequences that give more evidence of personalities emerging. One dancer can lighten or deepen the tone of another with this idea demonstrated through a touching and well-developed duet performed by Milena Twiehaus and Connor Schumacher. These dancers, remaining decidedly in their own zone were still able to connect enough to move alongside one another, interacting with small insinuations rather than overt gestures.

This work, rather than distilling a conceptual point, succeeds in presenting the broad spectrum of experience, witnessed through the filter of Serussi. His movement vocabulary can be childlike and playful but remains intricate and grounded. For a first full-length work, Serussi has presented something which is thought-provoking and engaging albeit too diversified at times. In one viewing, it is difficult to digest the enormity of movement presented, but at least the audience is left wanting more.
 

Sasha Waltz, choreographer of an impressive list of twenty-seven works to date, has experimented across a broad spectrum of movement. Her earlier works, satirical or surrealist in nature, have awed European audiences and won her numerous awards. Continu, a UK premiere, denotes a shift in style from her previous works, presenting a greater lyricism and relating to the continuity of the perpetual forces of nature. Inspired by two of Waltz’s previous projects, David Chipperfield’s Neues Museum Berlin and Saha Hadid’s MAXXI in Rome, Continu consolidates key elements present in her previous works, creating a work with choreographic, musical, and visual components that threaten to overwhelm the audience.

Acting with the grandiose nature of a 24-person company, Waltz has created a work that can drive and affect an audience by way of numbers. The first half of the work comprised of two parts, musically contrasting and choreographically epic. The first half, rhythmic and powerful, was led by the dynamic live percussionist Robyn Schulkowsky. Repetition was used to build warmth within the piece, almost tribal in sensation as dancers whirled around the stage, drawn into the same vortex. By contrast, the second movement, fuelled by Edgard Varèse’s Arcana (a central inspiration of the work), created the illusion of fragmentation, the movement suggestive of large scale images: sheets of ice shifting and breaking across the landscape, conveyed through groups of dancers shuffling, pausing and moving again. There was a strength created by groups, solos and duets forming only to disperse again, disintegrating back into the whole.

This work reached its peak with the third movement, the stage now laid with white. Being able to stand back and allow the movement to crash upon its audience has a certain compulsion, but a greater sense of intimacy with the dancers is something that can’t be overrated. There was a sense of this achieved through the lyricism of the second half, portraying a greater sense of the individual, highlighting dichotomies (positive and negative, light and dark) which are inherent within divisions of the greater structural forces focused on in the first half. Reminiscent of an afterlife or rebirth, partially naked men moved with a disjointed fluidity. Joined by a group dressed in muted shades, this half allowed for smaller group to be created, duets where women, draped horizontally on their partners would walk across the wall, or would paint in varied shapes across the stage with their feet.

Although difficult to understand at times, Waltz’s work contains several elements that are unique and complex, providing a rich viewing experience, both choreographically and musically compelling. Best witnessed as a sum of its parts, this work of large proportions is ambitious, but ultimately very fulfilling.
 

In today’s artistic environment focused on developing collaboration and depleting boundaries, it’s refreshing to see a choreographer questioning the validity and success of the fusion between dance styles and artistic mediums. When the lines between classical ballet and contemporary dance blur, movement vocabularies cross, linger, dive, and permeate one another, but to what degree of success?

This compelling notion was the concept behind Fusional Fragments, a work choreographed by Marc Brew in collaboration with percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie, and commissioned by the Southbank Centre as part of Unlimited: London 2012’s Cultural Olympiad, celebrating the extraordinary talents of deaf and disabled artists.

Five technically strong and diverse dancers graced the stage, interacting with and separating from percussionist Glennie as she wove, sang, and moved throughout the space, an influential and mesmerising force behind the movement. Both beginning and ending the work, Glennie exaggerated and morphed the soundscape, composed by Phillip Sheppard, and created her own element of interaction: a fused fragment beyond the constraint of a movement vocabulary, but still able to hold its own within the work.

Strong movement vocabularies were witnessed throughout the piece: the use of distinct lines, ballet positions and boundaries was evident, punctuated by contemporary dance’s use of levels, fragmented lines, and the breakdown of traditional partnerships. A dominating use of lighting splintered the stage, allowing the dancers to use these sharp angles to play with and interact with the space, shaping and visually distorting their own lines.

With a movement vocabulary that focuses on isolation and ‘broken’ lines, a lighting score that visually breaks down the dancer’s bodies (an interesting moment occurring when a strong light streamed across the space, highlighting only the dancer’s knees), this work mainly centers around fragmentation rather than fusion. By clearly breaking down and dividing the technical parameters of both movement styles, the idea of fusion became a little lost in the work. The work embraced both styles, but didn’t challenge them, and clearly defining the influences of the movement could ultimately lead to its confusion.

Yet there was something very compelling about this work. The atmosphere created in this piece through the movement and the collaborative elements are to be applauded, and though conceptually I felt a little let down in this work, visually this piece was something to behold.
 

Old floorboards creaked, the temperature rising as you ascend the small but cozy theatre space that is The Yard Theatre in Hackney Wick. It’s an intimate setting, bringing the dancers in close proximity to their audience, immersing both parties in loud music and mood lighting. A lone female dancer, dressed in black lace emerges from the corner, casting a long shadow onto the back wall. Her hair is severely coiled on her head, her movement quick and precise.

So begins AD Dance Company’s program And We Gather; injury had unfortunately affected these performances, and the company have done a wonderful job of reworking things at the last moment.

Calling upon the inspirational likes of Marie Rambert and Wayne McGregor is a vast and ambitious claim. Were both choreographers sitting side-by-side, these iconic British names may never have fathomed themselves in the same sentence, but this clash of choreographic influences has found a resting ground within the night’s program. Comprised of two works, Slowly We Collide and And They Have Escaped, both pieces sought to examine the influence of gender in choreography.

Slowly We Collide, choreographed by artistic director Holly Noble, leads a tangled journey, the two female dancers taunting and compelling the four male dancers to accompany them. There we strong overtones of swan images in this work, the dancers lifting their arms and isolating their shoulders, artistically preening before beginning another duet. Both male and female dancers had strong facility, and high legs abound in this work, punctuated with technically strong pas de deux work from the dancers.

I wonder at the ultimate intention of this piece, the male dancers showing no compulsion to physically respond to the female dancers who would cling to them, clearly trying to dominate. Were they commenting on the balletic dynamic of a female lead and her partner, I could forgive the ambivalence the males displayed, but a stronger call for an interrelationship would have developed a clearer notion of what was going on. The male dancers, often echoing the females in flipping their legs, matched one another so closely there was a stronger unity than division.

And They Have Escaped, choreographed by company members Chandelle Allen and Brett Murray, was busting with music and material. The whole company, entering the stage and creating boxes for themselves conveyed a series of duets, trios and group work, which was instigated by the dancers exiting their box. Progressively, they did indeed escape, with movements which were powerful, punctuated and fragmented. The tone of this piece contrasted strongly with the last, and the influx of the aforementioned inspiration was hinted at in the varying partnerships.

I would be interested to see this work displayed on a longer trajectory. There were so many ideas, and before they completely unraveled they were recapped and wound up to a conclusion. A whirlwind series, these relationships belied the long male solo at the beginning which involved the dancer darting and mimicking a dancer in another box, encouraging him to move. This solo captured a poignant moment, and this sensitivity carried throughout the rest of the piece may have calmed and shaped the rest into a more paced work.

AD Dance Company has grappled with an overload of ideas which never had the time or space to develop completely. While the dancers were certainly technically capable, the conceptual content was too ambitious and failed to achieve the physical resonance within the dancers for them to emotionally understand the piece and move their audience. Whilst the overall intent of this work was to gather, there were so many fragments that drove both of these pieces to disperse.