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Contemporary dance work can often unsuccessfully dangle somewhere between pure dance and theatre: vague characters and hard-to- follow plots which leave some audience members confused and bored. This is not the case with Dogs Land by Mad Dogs Dance Theatre. This piece of contemporary dance theatre combines hard-hitting and convincing storytelling, with choreography that pushes the boundaries of physicality in astounding and surprising ways. It is multi-layered and engaging for both dance and non-dance audiences, and gives the audience a real insight into the intense and passionate idiosyncrasies that occur inside conflicted relationships.
The strength of this piece is the combination and quality of collaborators that allow Dogs Land to create convincing characters: Douglas Thorpe is a highly accomplished choreographer and creates exciting intense movement that has an eccentricity that cannot be replicated; writer Joanne Hartley is a thoughtful writer, with a talent for finding the absurdness and humanity in characters and words. This is a well-chosen and refreshing cast, mature and from both theatre and dance backgrounds: a charismatic actor, who intrigues and punctuates the story; four incredible dancers, who embody their characters and amaze with breathtaking physicality.
Dog Lands manages to be very particular, yet still addressing universal themes. The injection of dark comedy in parts gives the intense emotional content of the choreography space to be absorbed and the audience moments to recover. The duets are excellently crafted evoking the extremes and oddities of love in a very physical way. Particularly convincing were the smaller nuances in the choreography: the touching of faces and smoothing of clothes, like gorillas picking fleas off their mates. This really spoke of those tiny destructions people do to one another.
By the far the most compelling section, which will replay in my head endlessly, is when one dancer starts writing on the blackboard “This is not working”; what ensues is two people’s amusing yet desperate battle over a blackboard, erasing of words, rewriting of words: the metaphorical clambering of a couple balancing their way through a clumsy break up. The use of spoken and written dialogue and clarity of the characters is one of the things which made this piece stand out. The opening words of the character played by actor Kevin Lennon are beautifully written and delivered; intriguing and amusing, it introduces the duality in the story. All the characters are very specific: in particular, the character played by Thomasin Gulgec is utterly brilliant; he is electric and his gestures so weird yet have that tinge of threat. The only thing that did not work was the odd placing of an interval, which was not needed and impacted on the flow of the story.
A short piece, by students of Calderdale College performing Douglas Thorpe’s choreography, was a welcome introduction for the evening. The students danced with professionalism, and it is clear that they were challenged and pushed in their dance skills, which demonstrates a good process. The female lead, in particular, showed strong dance potential. This part of the evening complemented Dog Lands well, contextualising the community element to Mad Dogs Dance Theatre. Dog Lands at Square Chapel in Halifax was memorable, thought-provoking, engaging and faultlessly performed.
Go see it if you can. Dog Lands is being performed at Barnsley Civic on Saturday 4th May with Horizon Community College, and then at Stage@Leeds on 14th May with students from Northern School of Contemporary Dance’s Summer Intensive.
For Barnsley Civic tickets, please visit: www.barnsleycivic.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=577:dogs-land&catid=8:dance&Itemid=9
For Stage@Leeds tickets, please visit: www.ents24.com/web/event/Dogs-Land-StageLeeds-University-of-Leeds-3376986.html