Cloud Dance Festival: Parade:

Slanjayvah Danza:  ‘Blind Passion - Live Cut’,  Nexus Dance: ‘Velocity - Of Nothing -  They Who Have Wings’,  Hagit Yakira:  ‘2B’,  Pair Dance:  ‘RUSH’, Sophia Hurdley:  ‘Callas’ 

December 2009

Bethnal Green, People Show Studios

by Bruce Marriott

The first time I've poked my head around Cloud Dance Festival's door, and apt, given Parade is a kind of "Best of" the previous 9 festivals they've given since starting business in 2007. There were 3 shows this weekend in Bethnal Green's 80-seat People Show Theatre, featuring 14 contemporary companies. The Sunday matinee I got to featured 5 and the general standard was a pleasing cut above Place Resolution and some of the curated Clore Studio events.

Slanjayvah Danza's Blind Passion - Live Cut kicked off the afternoon and proved a huge hit. Terrific to see a piece that is not about a troubled relationship for once, for this was about positive and wondrous things - the seductiveness and passion of bodies and physical contact. It starts with 'ordinary' Tango, the sexiest social dance of them all, and just as you think "That's OK, but Vincent and Flavia do it much better on 'Strictly'..." everything abruptly changes, the dancers (Jenni Wren and Phil Sanger - both excellent) don red blindfolds, strip right down, and the dance becomes much more free as they entwine and enjoy the pleasure of touch, manipulation and free contemporary play. It's HOT, but not in any sordid or smutty way ("damn" go all the heavy breathing 'may contain nudity' boys in the front row of the Place hoping for a transfer). It's an impressively fresh piece and I'm sure will be in the rep for a long time - it certainly deserves to be seen by many more.

If things started well it was down to earth with a bump during Nexus Dance's Velocity - Of Nothing - They Who Have Wings. It was supposed to be three solos but I think I only counted two: perhaps my brain just shut down. The programme didn't say if there was any particular theme but I didn't see much original here dance-wise - bar general contemporary noodling. I did though enjoy the live guitar and drawl of Tom Kirkpatrick.

Hagit Yakira and Takeshi Matsumoto were both lovable and annoying in 2B - sadly it was the annoying that won out for me. Credited with a dramaturge to ease its birth, 2B is "An attempt to create an abstract picture of two people meeting in one place, in an encounter that manifests itself in intimacy, competition, a challenge, tenderness and care." While just an 'attempt', it goes on far too long and I got very resentful of its impenetrable meanderings. The lovable bit is that both dancers have personally winning ways and there is humour in some of the competitions, like holding each others noses until they had to breathe, talking when they don't blink and when they do blink, they have to move (and not talk!). It's a bit like the dance equivalent of what Eddie Izzard would be to comedy if he was only firing on about one cylinder - on balance not such a great place to be. But true credit and kudos for trying something different.

Pair Dance grew to 3 for RUSH - an underground trip from Hell with endless personal pent-up frustration emerging and some bone-crunching dynamics as dancers hurl themselves around. It was all helped mightily by Richard Leonard's music/sound collage, which takes underground sounds, from the graunching and clatter of the wheels to the sneezing and wheezing of passengers and magnifies them to paranoid levels. A snappy and coherent piece of work that could fill the stage with movement.

Closing out the show was something very un-contemporary - Callas - about Maria Callas and Aristotle Onassis. Sophia Hurdley and her three dancers are Matthew Bourne/West End dance actors and their professionalism showed in impeccable costuming, make-up and video production. And hard to go wrong with a Maria Callas sound track. It explored the pursuit of Callas by Onassis and having won her his bored roving eye - all in rich 1950/60's period detail. The choreography was expressive and confident, if it broke no barriers, but like a Bourne show the work's success was as a complete production and it made me want to know more about Onassis and Callas - he clearly had more to him than money. It would be great to think this piece got developed on and its excellence rewarded. As my Granny would say "It was nice to see they dressed and bothered"!

I came away hugely impressed by the Festival and Chantal Guevara who puts it all on without public subsidy. The People Show Studios are pleasant enough but the Festival really needs somewhere bigger. All up a great advertisement for what "Can-do" attitude (by all concerned) can achieve and they deserve your support. Stop complaining about the lack of new work and go see some - in rich variety too. 

Original review posted on www.ballet.co.uk