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It has got to be something pretty special to unite most of the dance industry under one roof, and the inaugural performance of the New Adventures Choreographer Award was just that, a remarkable tribute to both Matthew Bourne and James Cousins, and the amount of support shown to both on this occasion. In an interlude, Bourne explained that the Award had been devised and arranged by Etta Murfitt and Nina Goldman as a 50th birthday present, raising a staggering amount in a short space of time. The unique features of the award scheme are that it focusses on a choreographer, rather than his or her choreography, who is then mentored not only by Bourne himself but also his colleagues and peers - a very rare opportunity indeed.

While James Cousins was the winner of the Award, it was felt that Tom Jackson Greaves's application was too strong to overlook, and as the runner-up, he performed a solo, Vanity Fowl, a Cinderella-esque story (alas without shoe or handsome prince) using some very unexpected storytelling and imaginative use of film.

Vanity Fowl opened with a film of Greaves at a glamorous party of sorts and feeling very socially awkward, all the more so as everyone started dancing to the music, Greaves too shy to join in. From the moment the film ended and screen lifted to show Greaves at the front of the stage, shaking hands with a succession of invisible people and holding a conversation with a highly critical voiceover, Greaves had the audience captivated by his engaging personality and the dancing which he built up during the conversation. When he attempts to dance, pitifully embarrassed and overly self-conscious, the entire sold-out audience feels for him. He attempts to reinvent himself with a sparkly jacket, but the jacket disintegrates, as do his dreams, leaving him lying on the stage with glitter raining down on him.

Vanity Fowl had such a strong opening section, with such vivid theatricality and Greaves continually engaging with the audience, that it was hard for the second half of the piece to live up to it, which was a shame: Vanity Fowl shows great promise, but as we saw in Bourne's Early Adventures, it can be hard to reconcile pure dance with such successful theatricality. But we can be certain that Greaves will be keeping audiences entertained and enthralled as he explores his choreographic ideas in the years to come: let's hope this is the start of a great career for him.



James Cousins, fresh from performing in Marc Brew's Fusional Fragments at the South Bank Centre a week ago, presented three new works: Here In Darkness for The Place's Centre for Advanced Training, a duet There We Have Been, and his grand finale, Everything and Nothing. There We Have Been was the highlight of the show for many people, an extraordinarily creative duet in which Lisa Welham was in constant contact with her partner Aaron Vickers, always supported by him, whether he was standing, kneeling or lying down. Dimly lit with a sparse piano score, There We Have Been was mostly slow in pace, making the most of certain beautiful poses, and enabling Cousins to dramatise sections where the speed and music increased. While the duet created plenty of beautiful moments, it also created some flaws which might have been easier to overlook in a shorter piece.

Here In Darkness was a short work for twelve prevocational dancers, and it displayed the sharpness and crispness of choreography which Cousins is known for. The relentless score by Klangwart drove the piece along through a succession of group sequences, never diminishing in pace. Here In Darkness is a mature and confident work, especially in his skilful handling of such a large cast, and his creative use of solos amid group sections, even if the work was too brief for changes in pace or dynamics.

Everything and Nothing was a group work for ten dancers, and at forty minutes long, easily Cousins' most ambitious work yet. It opened with all of the dancers huddled in a group, with slight shifts developing as the dancers broke away into separate sections, power and control being key throughout. Given the creativity of Cousins' duets, the group sections were somewhat weaker but were at their most effective when providing a backdrop - or indeed a foredrop - for solos or duets. And Cousins' ownership of the stage was inspired, as the lighting would draw the audience's eyes towards the rear corner of the stage for an unexpected duet. Later in the piece, a breathtaking solo by former BalletBoy(z) Miguel Esteves showed us how impressive Cousins' dancers are.

Earlier in the week, there had been a brief discussion on Twitter between critics about forty-minute pieces, and while many choreographers have too little to say yet stretch their pieces out, Cousins clearly had more than enough to say and struggled to squeeze it all into his forty minutes. Cousins's works are never short on great imagery, but with so much detail, the result was an overloading of the audiences' senses.

Cousins' three works show that he has certainly got the choreographic skills and voice; what remains is for him to decide where to take them, and what he chooses to do with them.

At the end of a dance-deprived summer, Cousins' works have been a much-needed injection of total dance to kick off the new season - no wonder the audience left on such a high!