Reviews

Tilted Productions: Seesaw

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Category: Reviews
Published: Monday, 02 July 2012 14:30
Written by Anna Pearce

The bright sunlight and whipping breeze were the perfect setting for Tilted Productions' staging of Seasaw at the Greenwich + Docklands International Festival this weekend.

In this 80-minute promenade performance, Maresa Von Stockert's company of seven performers lead their audience from place to place around Canary Wharf, where at each point we come across bodies - sometimes still, sometimes moving - all referencing the sea, its inhabitants or the traditions of the seaside.

We first of all see a couple meeting for a picnic. Set to an epic, Hollywoodesque score, the meeting seems fraught and urgent, an interesting contradiction to the idealistic picnic hamper and thermos, the contents of which are consumed hungrily.The piece goes on to lead its audience to a number of large, open spaces which are inhabited by the dancers, and the water of the wharf provides a wonderfully appropriate thematic setting for this work.

We see deepsea creatures, with plastic bottle spines and extended arms, performing slow-motion, underwater, almost cartoonlike duels in and around dustbins. There is a mournful and eerie duet between a man and a mermaid, with the female dancer's legs bound in water-soaked netting, to great effect.

There are moments when the piece is notably sinister, and highlights man's destructive influence on nature. This is particularly clear at our third stop, where we see three dancers as sea birds, covered in oil and moving in a distressed, fragmented way, sometimes together, sometimes apart, but never still. The epic sound score, along with the sound of bird cries and oil slipping on skin, and the ending of this section, where two 'humans' cover and suffocate the struggling birds with plastic sheeting, make this one of the more memorable moments of the work.

Billed as performance and installation, I was hoping for more to be able to interact with. We only had this opportunity once, when, signalled to do so by a sunbathing body on the pavement with the words written in sun cream on his back, we 'Listen(ed) To Shells'. The shells hanging on fencing emitted not the sound of waves crashing (as we all know they usually do), but the sound of a man reciting 'Not Waving but Drowning' by Stevie Smith, a further layer to the mournful tone of Stockert’s current work.

A more colourful part of Seasaw comes in the form of a man duetting with a striped deck chair. The quintessential symbol of British holiday-making is folded, climbed on, walked like a dog, struggled against and befriended, until finally, resolutely being sat in. The playfulness and almost slapstick elements here make for enjoyable, easy watching.

Our final stop is at another open, sweeping space along the wharf. Six dancers 'float' in life rings (not waving, but drowning?) in movement which sometimes feels contrived, but continues with a strong image of the dancers hurling earth from the immaculate lawn, and head-standing in the holes which they create. They remain there, and we move through them to a single female dancer, a rock and a water tank. She moves over, around and in the water, continuously ducking her head, birdlike, and whipping her head out, soaking the braver, closer audience members.

The image we are left with is her curled up, contortioned in the tank - a striking final image that I wanted to last longer.

Tilted Productions put on a great show, there is no doubt about that. The familiar images and bite-sized sections make the work very audience-friendly, although I felt that some sense of intimacy or connection was lost in the albeit beautiful, large open spaces in which the work was staged. But oh, I do like to be beside the seaside, and, along with some food for moral thought, Tilted do a great job of reminding me why.
 

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EDge

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Category: Reviews
Published: Monday, 02 July 2012 14:05
Written by Rachel Vogel

London Contemporary Dance School’s postgraduate company, EDge, offered a rather volatile night of dance watching. These little sticks of dynamite (aka dancers) can move with precision and speed, showcasing works by Sasha Waltz, James Wilton, Matthias Sperling, Rachel Lopez de Nieta and Tony Adigun. While the array of material in this dance programme was intriguing, there were small amounts of dislocation, yet the overall coherency of the night made for an enjoyable evening.

The first work was a restaging of Sasha Waltz’s earlier work String Quartet Nr. 1, originally created as part of a dance installation for the Neues Museum in Berlin. It was a very formal piece to begin the night with, and those used to current contemporary dance might be taken aback a little as a string quartet led this sextet of dancers on a lively but fragmented chase around the stage. In simple and colourful costumes, the dancers began the work with incremental broken movements, snapping back into position like a wooden children’s toy. The dancers possessed a surreal quality, lacking the fluidity that makes them human; their movements shifted them closer to the sharper sounds of the string instruments.

A curious development occurred when the dancers positioned themselves around the musicians and slowly relocated them (whilst they played) into the centre of the room. This visual shift was also a conceptual one, the focus of the piece turning toward the music itself. Albeit interesting, this seemed to be too much of a focus shift which left the dancers lying on the ground twitching intermittently with little visual interest.

The second piece, Through Shards by James Wilton, was much more steely than the first, beginning with a duet of dancers bounding out of the smoke. Reactive and volatile, this duet set the tone of what was to come: a strong, grounded work bringing a magnetic and forceful quality to the dancers. Duets and trios peppered the work, leaning, collapsing and creating a vivid cause and effect. The patterns created were simple, yet harboured a complexity which made this piece very visually interesting.

The interval shook up the audience to excite them for the unexpected nature of Matthias Sperling’s Dances With Purpose. The mention of “folk dance” in the programme notes implied something unerringly traditional and usurping the cultural ideology of the dance. This, I’m pleased to say, was not the case. The dancers were clearly enjoying themselves, wearing traditional costumes (universal black curly wigs included), bells, and waving a plethora of objects, from musical instruments to swords. Sperling’s work focused on the effect of cultural dance on an audience, and to that end he offered the joviality and inclusive nature of such a dance in all its glory. It may have been a little difficult to keep up the energy of this piece, but the concept and realization could inspire a love/hate reaction in the audience. Teetering on the edge of playful and monotonous, this work injected something just a little different into the night.

The two final works, Rite for Richard and Unleashed were both tributes to Richard Alston’s Wildlife, originally commissioned for last year's Dance Umbrella. Performed consecutively, they conveyed a contrasting interpretation of this 1986 work, one theatrical, another physically stirring.

Rite for Richard, choreographed by Rachel Lopez de la Nieta, began with a lone “bird” sitting bound on a chair in the corner of the room, dolled up in a sequinned dress, earrings and heavy makeup. This dancer created the pivot point for the other four who observed, reacted to and danced with this creature. De la Nieta’s observations and personal reactions to this documentary were astute, and there was plenty of artistic merit in the work, albeit lacking in the dance department. With a soundscape mixed by Jules Maxwell to include voiceovers and music from this film, there was an eclectic mix of stimuli which created a strong layer to the work.

Tony Adigun’s Unleashed was radically different to its predecessor. This work, at times, felt like a martial arts ground: the dancers whipped around, moved and interacted with an astute sense of one another and the space they occupied. Mimicking some of the textures in the earlier Wilton piece, invariably the strength of these dancers was shown off to great effect, even if their smiles weren’t. The costumes created an intriguing severity which was reflected in the movement style, and these whirlwinds of movement were certainly captivating to watch.

All in all, this was a stylistically absorbing night. Flipped through different physical textures, various facets of these dancers were dually explored, and the works, though quick, offered a glimpse into the technical capacity of these talented graduates.
 

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LC3

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Category: Reviews
Published: Friday, 29 June 2012 01:07
Written by Chantal Guevara

If you have any doubts about London Contemporary Dance School's influence on the contemporary dance industry, all you have to do is attend a LC3 performance and wait a year or two: past choreographers in recent years have included James Wilton and James Cousins. LC3 is a touring company of third-year students presenting a mixture of student choreography, commissioned works and repertoire - and only the very best of each. The current programme featured three works by students alongside a work by Rick Nodine and Richard Alston's most recent work, 'A Ceremony of Carols'.

Each of the student works were shockingly brief; the opening work, The Fallen by Chris Scott, seemed to end before it had decided on its direction. No sooner had the piece started than the five dancers started throwing each other around and manipulating each other physically. The choice of dim lighting and gladiatorial costumes did make the piece seem less original, while the dynamic physical style of choreography was too evocative of that of Joss Arnott and Charlie Dixon; it would be better for Scott to discover and explore his own voice.

2pm by Tom Peacock and Andrea Dorelli was the most surprising student work I've seen for a long time, a simple playful piece about two marionnette-like characters with jerky jiglike movements which were all the more effective due to their utterly deadpan faces. 2pm was very inventive and creative with plenty of hilarity and dramatic flair, not only showing Peacock and Dorelli as promising choreographers, but also as very vivid performers too.

The third student work was a solo by Michael Kelland called Opsimath, a piece which could have easily been significantly longer and still not long enough. Kelland performed a very fluid and sinuous solo, seamlessly fusing martial arts and acrobatics with contemporary dance, and slightly reminiscent of Russell Maliphant's award-winning Afterlight with Kelland turning and spinning on a darkened stage. Opsimath was very beautiful and also very unique; let's hope this is the start of a fruitful career for Kelland.

The final piece before the interval was Richard Alston's A Ceremony of Carols which was premiered last autumn. While it's undeniably rewarding for the students to learn a company's current repertoire rather than something from the archives, A Ceremony of Carols was perhaps not the most effective work to have chosen, considering the size of Rich Mix's stage and the large number of group sections in the work. Between Richard Alston Dance Company's tours and the recent retrospective of his works in last year's Dance Umbrella, there have been ample opportunities to see his works, and in particular his most impressive dancers Andres de Blust-Mommaerts, Liam Riddick, Nathan Johnson, Pierre Tappon and Nancy Nerantzi; it takes a graduate performance to make us realise how effortlessly Alston's dancers perform his works, and how easy they make it seem.

A Ceremony of Carols is a good piece for challenging dancers' technique, and while there were a number of challenging group sections, there were quite a few sections for fewer dancers, offering each of the dancers several opportunities to stand out. The standout performances were by the dancers who managed to achieve the necessary lightness and precision of movement, while it was easy to spot other dancers who wanted to dance with more vigour or passion. While Alston's style was clearly not suited to all, each of the twelve dancers gave heartfelt performances nonetheless.

Rick Nodine's Inner Orbit was the only piece in the second half of the evening, and easily the most successful work of the night. It started with fifteen dancers walking around the stage in a circle, with three darting into the centre to briefly strike some poses before rejoining the circle. As the circle progressed, differing numbers of dancers would move into the centre for different interactions: partnerwork, standoffs, confrontations. Each of these sections was very shortlived, never having the chance to develop too far, using very simple choreography such as dancers throwing themselves at each other.

Inner Orbit was a lighthearted and joyful piece, not as technically challenging as Alston, which perhaps added to its appeal and freshness. Even with lots of activity taking place onstage, it never overwhelmed the space in the same way that its predecessor did. And, hey, you've got to love a work which uses the theme music from Matthew Bourne's Dorian Gray!

There was an impromptu postshow Q&A, and it was very impressive to see how maturely and eloquently the students answered the audience's questions, including fielding one question which assumed that the students all aspire to end up on Strictly Come Dancing! It was very reassuring to hear the students realistically discuss their future plans and how they perceive the arts funding crisis as a challenge and opportunity, and not the insurmountable obstacle it is to so many others. Let's hope for bright futures for all of them.
 

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Hofesh Shechter Dance Company: In Good Company

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Category: Reviews
Published: Thursday, 28 June 2012 00:38
Written by Chantal Guevara

Considering his near-legendary status, we've actually seen very few works by Hofesh Shechter over the past ten years, so In Good Company, a showcase of works by several of his dancers, could have been seen as an opportunity for Hofesh's diehard fans to explore more of his style, as interpreted by his dancers. Certainly it would have been unrealistic to expect the dancers to not have been influenced by Hofesh's distinctive style - Philip Hulford and guest artist Christopher Evans both joined the company in 2006, Sita Ostheimer in 2008, Yeji Kim in 2010 and both James Finnemore and Sam Coren in 2011 - and while the highlights of the night were the choreographers finding their own unique voices, the show was nevertheless filled with powerful and impressive dancing.

The most distinctive work of the evening was Sam Coren's 'No Way But Down', which saw him reunite with his 2009 collaborative partner Kasper Hansen, now an international set and costume designer. Their first joint work, back in 2009, was part of London Contemporary Dance School's collaboration with Wimbledon School of Art, resulting in the hilarious and very theatrical Intrepid Exploring (video), which earned them a comparison with New Art Club. 'No Way But Down' offered the audience to see how the pair had evolved and matured over the past three years, and certainly it's a very assured and confident work, not compromising to provide more (any) dance content.

No Way But Down was about a solitary homeless man, portrayed by Igor Urzelai (one of The Place's Work Place artists), and his loneliness and isolation, alleviated in part by various props. Humour was provided when Urzelai, eating from a can of baked beans, found his spoon attacking him, followed by his hand throwing the contents of the can in his face. The most touching moments of the piece were in Urzelai's interactions with a pair of hoodies, looking longingly at the first one and pulling its sleeve around him in an embrace, then laying another one beside it on the ground so that one appeared to be spooning the other.

While an interesting and certainly the most creative work of the evening, No Way But Down engaged the audience the least, and sat somewhat uncomfortably with the rest of the programme.

The other individual voice of the evening was James Finnemore, a far more experimental work than last year's solo 'Patriot', but still using a similar movement style. 'The Age' was created in three sections, with the first section by far the most enjoyable of the three. The opening section used very stilting and controlled movements, with dancers Victoria Hoyland and Philip Hulford resembling music box dolls. Although dim lighting and electronic music with pronounced drumbeats were used throughout the evening, in The Age, it had the effect of making the piece more compelling to watch, forcing the audience to watch more closely in case they should miss any of the slight movements. When the dancers made the transition to non-mechanical movement, it was in short bursts, but using a very free and loose movement style, far more reminiscent of Patriot than of Shechter's style. As with Patriot, this style is captivating, and it's to be hoped that Finnemore has ample opportunities to develop his choreographic voice further, as he's definitely one to watch.

The rest of the works were less successful choreographically. The closing work was Accompany by Sita Ostheimer and Christopher Evans; "Sita and Chris are a couple" were the sole programme notes for this work, a very improvised and playful piece about creating the piece itself: in lieu of music, the soundtrack was of Christopher and Sita themselves discussing and discarding choreographic ideas. In the opening scene, Sita's movement style was aggressive and confrontational, drawing on martial arts, and her dancing retained an element of aggression throughout the piece, alternating with a frenzied improvised style while Evans - dancing alone, sometimes joining her, sometimes dancing alongside her - was almost simian in his movements. There was plenty of humour to engage the audience, as well as the threat of being dragged on stage, and despite the slightness of the work, it was clear that this was the audience favourite of the evening.

Yeji Kim's 'Last of his act' had the most copious programme notes of all five works, and indicated that the piece would be an exploration of Woman, and it developed slowly, initially with Yeji Kim and Sita Ostheimer gradually shifting between embraces, then tango-infused duets, finally culminating in Hofesh-style frenzied movement. Kim managed to blend Earth Goddess with animalistic movements in her choreography, although it was weakened by the false ending and staggered final section.

Philip Hulford, in 'lukewarm and loving it', managed to develop the most interesting relationships between his three dancers - Frederic Despierre, Karima El Amrani and Hannah Shepherd - with one of the women, dressed in a purple sweatshirt, cast as the nominal outsider, rebuffing the others' attempts to include her, yet occasionally approaching them of her own volition. Over the course of the work, Hulford explored the shifting relationships between the three dancers using very vigorous and physical choreography, while the most haunting moment was of the woman in purple dancing a solo, lit by an old-fashioned floor lamp, watched by the other two dancers. The only thing letting down this piece was its vivid echoes of Shechter's Political Mother; the structure and ideas more than prove Hulford's choreographic abilities, it just remains for him to find a voice of his own.

Thanks should be given to Hofesh Shechter for providing his dancers with this opportunity to develop themselves further as artists, and to South East Dance, the Jerwood Charitable Foundation, Brighton Dome and Jacksons Lane for providing the dancers with the resources to create these works. Let's see what the future holds for them.

 

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StopGAP Dance: SPUN Productions

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Category: Reviews
Published: Wednesday, 27 June 2012 09:03
Written by Rachel Vogel

High energy with smiles for all, StopGAP’s SPUN Productions leaves us just that – spinning. With a quirky, mobile set and fast-moving crew, this performance is a whirlwind of colour, sound and movement in a style which will appeal to all age groups.
 
Part dance, part theatre, SPUN Productions follows the rise and fall of celebrity Dave, offering frantic glimpses into a startled and hyped-up world of fame. The central character is pushed and pulled, most often unwittingly, into snapshots of situations, being torn apart and thrown together in a mish-mash of the world Dave knows and of his celebrity double. With bright costumes, larger-than-life characters, these dancers injected a sense of frivolity with some noteworthy one-liners, enough to tease and educate their audience.

StopGAP are a UK company with a strong philosophy regarding integration and participation, encouraging performers with and without disabilities. To this end, the strong characterizations seamlessly blended varying attributes of the dancers, and performers strengths were shown off to great effect. Movement styles ranged from the pedestrian, to the commercial, touching on the contemporary. Dancers would jump and tumble onto and over one another, characters colliding, physically mimicking the “fading sequences” from television.

But alongside this flurry of movement, there was an emotional depth that pervaded the work, demonstrated most freely in the final duet between David Willdridge and Lucy Bennett. The conceptual flipside of the rise is ultimately the fall, and StopGAP worked with the sensitivity required of that situation, navigating toward artistic sentimentality rather than distaste.

Performed outdoors, SPUN Productions coerced the delight from a pop-up performance, promoting The Cultural Olympiad, and used the setting to their advantage. With an up close and personal view of the performers, there was no strict boundary to the “stage” and children in particular found this mesmerizing.

For a commentary on a commercial world, StopGAP offer a sensitive and playful platform to be understood by children and adults alike. If you’re looking for a fun-filled injection of dance and theatre, look no further.
 

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Shadowball & The Brown Bomber

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Category: Reviews
Published: Sunday, 24 June 2012 00:09
Written by Lewis Wheeler

Students from Hackney Musical Development Trust's (HMDT) I Can Sing! Performing Arts School performed a specially-adapted dance version of Julian Joseph's jazz opera 'Shadowball' and the follow-on production of 'The Brown Bomber Dance suite' as part of the London 2012 celebrations. Both projects involved the school students learning about the history of racial integration in baseball (Shadowball) and the historic 1936 and 1938 boxing matches between German Max Schmeling and African-American Joe Louis (The Brown Bomber).

Shadowball playfully mixed iconic baseball action: pitching, batting and sliding into jazz style dance phrases which were performed with panache to the accompanying swinging music played by the Julian Joseph Sextet. The dancers (who were from four years 5 & 6 classes from two neighbouring schools) displayed an excellent sense of musicality and phrasing in their dancing which united the complexity of the narrative, the sport and the dancing around its underlying theme of its historical context and the popular jazz music of the time.

Poignantly, the death of Josh Gibson ("the black Babe Ruth") was alluded to: a dancer held his body stiffly in a cross shape and was lifted above the others' heads. Behind the pallbearers carrying his body across the stage was a funeral procession who turned 360 degrees on every second step. Performed solemnly and with full conviction, it was a very moving 'dance funeral' sequence.

The piece ended in an upbeat mode with both teams returning with overtones of West Side Story's Jets and Sharks as they played at psyching each other out dance-style before a big finale which wouldn't have looked out of place in an MGM musical.

This dance suite version of 'Shadowball' was fun, poignant and joyful to watch, and the fact that it stemmed from a great educational project made it even more satisfying. I'd definitely like to see the full opera version revival please.

The Brown Bomber dance suite was a superb piece of dance theatre. The dancers embodied a multitude of characters epitomising the time of the second boxing match between Schmeling and Louis. The boxers' training camps with their attendant fans and young pretenders, the managers and coaches were all brought exquisitely to life through well-developed characterisation and well-chosen dance styling. Adding another layer of vivacity to the piece were the no-expense-spared costumes; it was like watching a dance version of the Bugsy Malone film.

Professional dancers Jason Poullard and Bless Klepcharek performed the roles of the two main boxers, bringing a balletic grace to the boxing; their fluidity and agility brought more of a Muhammad Ali style to the boxers which was slightly incongruous considering that they were playing heavyweight champions, but their considerable technique, precision and turning ability worked very well to portray the skill of the boxers presented through dance.

Sheron Wray's choreography created a complex, layered piece with simultaneous events happening on the stage that worked pictorially overall and rewarded you wherever you chose to focus. The clever set added to the piece by dividing the stage with rope barriers to create two boxing rings then one, which added a further sense of design to the stage without robbing the space for the dance action. The performers coped admirably with a set malfunction, showing skills in improvisation well in keeping with the accompanying jazz sextet.

Memories of this work will stay with me for a long time and having never participated in a standing ovation previously, I am so glad that I put down my notebook and stood up for this fantastic dance work. Congratulations to all.

The Brown Bomber will next be performed at the South Bank Centre on 15 July as part of the Cultural Olympiad; further details and tickets are available via this link: ticketing.southbankcentre.co.uk/find/dance-performance/tickets/julian-joseph-the-brown-bomber-65758

 

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James Cousins Dance: There We Have Been

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Category: Reviews
Published: Monday, 18 June 2012 23:41
Written by Emily Peckham

Dance East often offers short residencies to talented emerging companies, allowing them to explore and work on new material. James Cousins Dance was recently offered such an opportunity.

Choreographer James Cousins recently won the first New Adventures Choreographer Award, offering him valuable mentoring from Matthew Bourne who has described James as ‘one of the UK’s most promising choreographic talents’, and audiences around the country are inclined to agree.

The dance series Rough Cuts at Dance East showcased his latest work in the early stages of the development process. A very small but very knowledgeable dance audience was in for a treat when James Cousins Dance performed an early draft of There We Have Been; the finished work will be performed at Sadler's Wells in the autumn.

There We Have Been is based on the Japanese novel Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami, and explores the unconventional relationship between the two main characters, portrayed by Aaron Vickers and Lisa Welham, using beautiful contact work. There We Have Been also shows an amazing display of strength and balance as the two wrap and fold around each other, with Aaron keeping Lisa off the floor for the full 20 minutes of the performance - an incredible feat!

It's difficult to pick a highlight as the whole performance was filled with beautiful moments but the contrast between the smooth delicate movements, clear lines and the fast breathcatching moments as Lisa was caught just before touching the ground was a perfect juxtaposition of movement.

The post-show Question and Answer session identified small areas which need further work, such as a costume malfunction experienced by Lisa. It also allowed the audience to reflect on the work, and many wanted to see the piece again straight away because it felt like history was being made.

This performance has to be seen to be believed, so book your seats for the full performance of this work at Sadler's Wells on September 7th while tickets are still available.

 

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2Faced Dance Company: In The Dust

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Category: Reviews
Published: Sunday, 17 June 2012 19:56
Written by Lucinda Al-Zoghbi

Off of London's beaten track, The Albany is an unlikely arts centre located in Deptford. Walk inside, and it has that community centre feeling, but when you go further, the auditorium screams circus with its two-storey in-the-round seating, jewelled with bright lights. It seems that first impressions were deceiving.

In The Dust is a triple-bill from all-male urban contemporary dance company 2Faced Dance Company, featuring seven hurly-burly artists with training in ballet, contemporary, hip-hop and everything in between. They hit the ground running in Tom Dale’s Subterrania, a piece which explores the pulsating rhythms and heavy basslines of electro DJ Shackleton. The full company are enlisted to bang about, as loud as they can, causing a creative riot on stage. Together, they are dynamic, athletic, powerful: the essence of man? But it's true that you can have too much of a good thing: in this case, virile bodies in an enclosed space for an extended period of time; there’s simply not enough room for all of them and their bustling energy. In fact, they nearly knock down The Albany's walls with their power! As a result, some of the movement, and the abundance of energy that comes with it is lost, at times.

Politicking Oath, a creation by Place Prize finalist Freddie Opoku-Addaie, gives a courteous nod to the London 2012 Olympic Games and, with barely weeks to go, it’s certainly a topical work. Three men enter, each clutching what appear to be random objects (a pig mask, an alarm clock and a pair of running shoes), and lie down on the floor. They’re sleeping. But then comes the dreaded alarm, not just once but several times, like a series of false starts on the running track. National pride and identity arise and Alerto Bernal’s tightly-mixed score, mixed with sports commentary and speeches from national figures, begins to sound like a broken record. Against that backdrop, a simple game of piggy in the middle starts to relay a hidden message of politics or Politicking of human nature on a global scale. It may be the most athletic of the three works, but it's also the least engaging, failing to connect with the audience as successfully as the rest of the programme.

7.0 is the most successful of the three pieces due to its composition, content and climax. Choreographed by 2Faced Dance Company's Artistic Director Tamsin Fitzgerald, this piece centres around the devastating earthquake which hit Haiti in 2010. The piece is named in order to highlight the severity of this natural disaster, a huge 7.0 magnitude on the Richter scale and the dancers match that, in dance terms at least, with a violent surge of virtuosity which leaves you in disbelief. Somersaults, backflips, turning jumps that explode, mid-air, with an extra, quite unexpected manoeuvre thrown in at the very last moment. These guys are on fire! But more than that, there is power in their acting, their ability to tell a story or, more specifically, retell the stories of the many millions of civilians who suffered, all through the art of performance. It’s the realisation in the eyes of the dancers, that these people’s lives are in tatters. Goosebumps, a lump in the throat – this is powerful stuff.

They may be two-faced but, in this case, that’s only a good thing.
 

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Zoi Dimitriou: You May!

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Category: Reviews
Published: Thursday, 14 June 2012 08:20
Written by Rachel Vogel

Observing Zoi Dimitriou’s work You May! seemed like a surreal dream. Haunting and evocative, taunting the dichotomies of possibility and impossibility, Dimitriou uses dance, theatre, photography, sound, and video to create a multidisciplinary piece which asks more questions than it answers.

A philosophical and artistic venture, Dimitriou presents her own reflection of contemporary society. In a world with countless opportunities, the desire to take ownership of one’s own destiny can mean that unhappiness in life can lead to a sense of guilt. Questioning this, Dimitriou has inverted the paradigm “You Can, Because You Must” to become “You Must, Because You Can”. We must be happy, because we can be happy, right?

The stage was set with white cloud-like objects, abstract in nature and representing “the space between”. With time being the impetus to create space (and thus movement), the dancers would count out loud, causing the body to move within space simultaneously defining it

Highly articulated movement conveys the fast-forward-rewind repetition within the work. Movements are robotic and controlled, methodical and calculated. Phrases are episodic, framed between spoken dialogues, and over time build into a fragmented overload of possibilities. These episodes seemed to collide with one another, with no phrase reaching its own conclusion.

You May! is a work which turns you inside out. In creating possibility, I think Dimitriou deliberately courted confusion. Indecisiveness rather than possibility drove me from step to step, and by the end I felt wrung out instead of challenged. I craved for the bodies on stage to reach some physical end point, stretching themselves and arriving somewhere.

However, in consequence, Dimitrou’s work seemed to accurately achieve its intention. Physically bound, unfinished, the movements and the structures of the work created layers which remained with you long after the applause has finished. Not only is there resonance regarding the concept of endless possibilities, this work challenges the means of dance to convey such philosophically conceptual ideas.

Not for the lighthearted, this work has a strong soul to it. Deeply considered and meticulously realised, the highlights of this work drift into your consciousness long after you’ve experienced it.
 

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Pina Bausch: Como el musguito...

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Category: Reviews
Published: Wednesday, 13 June 2012 00:54
Written by Chantal Guevara

Very occasionally, you see a show which is so extraordinarily good, it's exhilarating and has an utterly powerful effect on you. Pina Bausch's '...Como el musguito en la piedra, ay si, si, si...' is such a show - made all the more poignant as it was the final work she created before her untimely death in 2009.

The current Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch: World Cities 2012 season is showcasing ten of Bausch's works, created between 1986 and 2009, and it's an oddity of the programming which saw Sadler's Wells present 'Como el musguito' right after the earliest work, 'Viktor' (1986), which makes it almost impossible not to compare the two works, and appreciate 'Como el musguito' for its differences.

Unlike most of the works in the current season, 'Como el musguito' used a completely stark set, with only a black backdrop and a white stage, suggestive of the Atacama desert or of ice, which regularly fractured as though it was breaking ice or tectonic plates. Even the props were minimal, with a chair brought out from time to time, and ubiquitous water bottles, but certainly nothing on the scale of Viktor's or Nur Du's excesses.

In most of these works which were commissioned by specific cities around the world, the structure is comprised of many little vignettes and tableaux, in which theatre is foremost and dance only happens when a story isn't being told. The beauty of 'Como el musguito' is that the stories were told through dance - and such exquisite dancing it was, too! - as though Bausch had reconciled herself to using dance as a form of expression without needing to rely so heavily on theatrics.

Bausch's works normally explore the range of human experience, often somewhat sardonically, but 'Como el musguito' appeared to have been created in an unusually positive and optimistic frame of mind, focussing solely on relationships, our quirks and the obstacles we often encounter - even if a three-way relationship with a sapling isn't usually one of them. We saw a man kiss Anna Wehsarg only to be slapped by her; he rehearsed the slap then called her back - this time, she kissed him, and he slapped himself in the face. Another woman prepared to dance with a man, stripped off his shirt, grabbed another man, stripped off his shirt too and pushed both to the ground. Wait for it... she laid herself across their ankles and counted out loud while both men did pushups and situps.

The solos were the emotional core of this piece, and they're some of the most beautiful and mesmerising dance you'll see. In fact, if you've watched the trailer at Sadler's Wells, two of the three dance sequences are from this piece: of solo dancers hurtling themselves around with free abandon, and a distinctive amount of hair - and the beauty of this work reinforces the tragedy of Bausch's premature death.

One of the women talks about how she's enjoying the moment, not dwelling on the past or the future, only living for now: and you can't help but wonder if these are Pina Bausch's own words.

'Como el musguito''s final performance may be sold out, but do what you can to get a ticket - or forever regret missing it.

 

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Transitions Dance Company

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Category: Reviews
Published: Saturday, 09 June 2012 23:51
Written by Rachel Vogel

Transitions Dance Company, the original postgraduate dance company for Trinity Laban Conservatoire, is a long-standing opportunity for young professionals to gain company experience and bridge the stressful gap between formal training and entry into the professional world.

This cohort lacks nothing in enthusiasm and commitment to the pieces, and offered a triple bill which reflected upon their technical capacity as dancers and touched on dramatic interpretations. Presenting three works by diverse choreographers - Shang Chi Sun, Hubert Essakow and Martin Nachbar - each piece presented facets of this company’s strengths, yet still retained a particular sameness.

The opening piece, under trot, began in low lighting, the stage a raw, industrial-looking space. There was an eerie quality when David Tudor’s “Pulsers” began to thrum and the lone central dancer started to move from her crouch, sliding and contorting to the ground. Her disjointed movements seemed somewhat mechanical, and it was this flavour that permeated the rest of the piece.

Stoic and emotionally absent, this sextet of dancers moved around the space, surrendering to compelling duets and trios, but ultimately sending one another off alone. This work was technically beautiful and meditative, but without any connection really developing between the dancers, I found it somewhat lacking.

The second piece, Essakow’s Sharing Haring, was a colourful work inspired by the work of American artist Keith Haring. Using the musical works of Mike MacLennan, Jon Opstad, Pachelbel and Scarlatti, this piece opened with the promise of more “contemporary” style absence, but quickly became an example of hyperactive colour. The jelly baby-esque costumes created an exciting, moveable commentary which isolated the artist, performed by Chris Goodwin, within the piece; his observations, and occasional rendezvous with his “artworks” articulated the relationship between artist and work.

Ballet technique, systematic lines and patterns emerged within this work reminiscent of a ballet piece. Once again, duets which were created then scampered off, obviously a snapshot of existing Haring works. Most beautiful was the duet between Chris Goodwin and his purple figure friend, a human essence inherent in the interaction. Visually dynamic, this piece was musically attentive and technically sound, and interesting overall to watch.

To finish the trio of works, The Drawing Room, choreographed by Martin Nachbar, was a playful take on the domestic environment of the British family. Filled with humour and plenty of characterisation, this piece created enough drama and entertainment to complete the evening.

Demanding a different quality from the dancers, this work offered something extra to draw upon. The “family portrait”, a whimsical snapshot into the essence of this work, was well timed, with much of the hype surrounding the Queen’s Jubilee.

Conceptually diverse, this evening was an entertaining trio of works. From contemporary starkness to bold dramatisations, there was a platter of energies to immerse yourself in. Transition’s dancers are very technically promising, with the capacity to develop further depth over time. While lacking in the richness and boldness of more experienced practitioners, the prowess of these dancers is something well worth seeing.
 

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Threads Dance Company: (confines)

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Category: Reviews
Published: Saturday, 09 June 2012 21:45
Written by Lewis Wheeler

Threads Dance Company created a spectacular world of dark storytelling, visceral tableaux and powerful bionic dancing. The passages of Tahar Ben Jelloun's novel 'This Blinding Absence of Light', read by Paul Fuller, set us in a dark underworld of loneliness with its melancholic existential contemplations on survival.

Blinding flashes of light revealed the dancers in various striking tableaux before highlighting them against the back wall in a fast-edited film trailer style. Elizabeth Peck's uninhibited use of stillness throughout the piece added a strong dimension to the work as did the various amounts of movement, light and speech in each section.

The dancers themselves were like some strange bionic corrupted ballerinas. They combined exhilaratingly high extensions with a careful nuance of execution and an almost Amazonian sense of strength throughout their bodies. It was only when the number of high legs reached Balanchine quantities did I tire of this aspect of the choreography. The straps and loops built into the costume worked powerfully when suggestive of bondage. Unfortunately in the final section we saw too clearly how easily they were attached so it was impossible to suspend disbelief and share the dancer's bewilderment as she broke through them.

The choreography was extremely audience-friendly in terms of its use of patterns and repetition, much easier to buy into than a tornado of ever-changing ideas. With its exciting and unusual movement vocabulary and the sheer athleticism the dancers had to employ to move in and out of the floor so often, it was never less than engaging. In an early section, there was too much unison for a while which diminished the work slightly, and also the music at the last big section become too upbeat and pop-like given the content of the work. Overall these things were not enough to detract me from feeling like I had been totally immersed within this preternatural world.

WatkinsDance presented 'forget-me-not', a tribute from Anna Watkins to her late mother which, while choreographically seemed composed of many disjointed ideas, was performed by an accomplished company of dancers.
 

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Colin, Simon & I: Because We Care

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Category: Reviews
Published: Saturday, 09 June 2012 12:28
Written by Rachel Vogel

The partnership of Colin and Simon is a compelling one. Dissonant, aggressive, intellectual, caring and playful: the dichotomies which these two performers create forms an interesting and layered work, an experience for audiences to step into, reflect upon and revisit.

“Because We Care” is a collaboration between Colin Poole (UK) and Simon Ellis (NZ), two independent solo artists. This work was developed to scrutinise the male friendship, exemplifying the process of connecting and trusting another human being. After an initial collaboration in 2007, their partnership “Colin, Simon and I” formed. This work is the next in an ongoing conversation about life and the development of this relationship.

The slapping of flip flops, squeaking chairs, and weighted glances charge this work from the beginning. For the next hour, the space feels loaded, pushed and probed. Colin and Simon manage to navigate the outer reaches of their own limits, systematically challenging ours, walking the fine line between care and aggression, but always with a sense of play. These dancers set up then desecrate boundaries, a tug-o-war of attentiveness and disregard. The wave-like structure of the phrases drifting between one point and it’s polar opposite in moments.

Implicit messages pepper the work: power struggles, compliance, joy and connection in moving forward, yet all retain a very personal and intuitive cohesiveness.  

Colin and Simon aimed to create space for interpretation in this work, and to this end, they were successful. The questions that arise from seemingly simple situations, eg manipulating a child-sized cloth doll with everything from hands to teeth, are as diverse as the audience members, however never fail to stimulate a reaction. In fact, the audience in this work is an acknowledged third person: witnessing, reacting to, and creating a platform for these performers to butt against. It’s not the virtuosity of movement that is the compelling factor in this work, it’s the limit these performers are willing to take within their own skin, physically and emotionally.

I appreciate the sense of exploration and vulnerability in this work. Two dancers of lesser honesty could not have commanded so much emotional investment, and I greatly look forward to the potential for another instalment.

 

 

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Rambert Season of New Choreography

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Category: Reviews
Published: Thursday, 07 June 2012 00:44
Written by Chantal Guevara

All good things must come to an end, and in the case of the latest edition of Rambert Dance Company's Season of New Choreography, it was Jonathan Goddard's and Gemma Nixon's time with Rambert, as they look to their futures as a choreographers and dancers with and beyond New Movement Collective.

Looking to Rambert's future too, and specifically its future home in Southwark, the Season of New Choreography has appropriately relocated to the nearby Queen Elizabeth Hall, past showcases having been held at The Place and Royal Opera House's Linbury Studio. The current format, generously supported by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, presented four pieces, this time by Dane Hurst, Mbulelo Ndabeni, Patricia Okenwa and Jonathan Goddard & Gemma Nixon. It was an oddity about this programme that several of the pieces were evocative of others, whether deliberately or unintentionally.

Dane Hurst first came to my attention in 2010's The Place Prize, where he made far more of an impression as a dancer than as a choreographer, but 'The Window' shows that he has clearly been developing as a choreographer, with this as his most accomplished work yet. 'The Window' looks back to the apartheid laws of South Africa's 1948 Group Areas Act, exploring how one particular household might have been affected. The piece opens inocuously, with Angela Towler recreating scenes from Sylvie Guillem's 'Bye' by Mats Ek, reclining by a floor lamp. As more and more women fill the stage, their sense of cabin fever heightens, however the energy shifts when three men arrive, seeking somewhere to dance, and someone to dance with. Towards the end, the piece turns sinister, and the violent and disturbing scenes are perhaps in too much contrast with the rest of the piece. It's Hurst's strongest work yet, with adventurous choreography, but the story could have been heightened if it was reduced in length.

Mbulelo Ndabeni's Face Up, a duet with Miguel Altunaga, was an enjoyable duet about the boundaries in a relationship between two men, in a part-dance, part-fight context. There's something compelling about watching two men dance together, and although Face Up didn't say much, it was entertaining to watch.

The night ended with Patricia Okenwa's Viriditas, a piece which seemed to celebrate womenhood and ritual, however from its Isadora Duncan intentions, it seemed evocative of both Rite of Spring and perhaps the outtakes of Apres-midi d'un faun. Continuing the Faun references, Okenwa's choreography was very stylised and deliberate, shedding the dynamism of the evening's earlier performances. There were some great performances nonetheless, if slightly hampered by the little polystyrene balls underfoot, for example during the mad scene.

The best - and most exciting - piece of the evening was easily Jonathan Goddard's and Gemma Nixon's Heist, a quartet including Eryck Brahmania and Estela Merlos. It opened on Goddard moving distractedly, with Nixon mirroring him upstage, a device which they repeated throughout the piece. Although they used a slightly mechanical style of choreography, the dancing was extremely fluid, highlighted by Paul Green's beautifully dramatic lighting design. The most striking aspect of the work was the tight connection between the dancers, enabling them to mirror each other regardless of where each was on the Queen Elizabeth Hall's large stage.

Let's hope that Heist indicates a bright future for Jonathan Goddard and Gemma Nixon: the contemporary dance world needs more works like this!

 

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Mark Bruce Company: Made In Heaven

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Category: Reviews
Published: Wednesday, 06 June 2012 23:37
Written by Chantal Guevara


When most people think of dance theatre, they probably think of the likes of family-friendly dance theatre such as Matthew Bourne or Jasmin Vardimon. Possibly even the experimental dance theatre which Laban students and graduates seem to excel at - yet none of this even comes close to the worlds created by Mark Bruce, whose Made In Heaven seems to allude heavily to both David Lynch and to Hal Hartley.

The premise of the story is simple: an isolated island prison, a prison break, a brutal murder. But the story which unfolds is so much more vivid and strange than that.... not least due to the striking imagery and staging which transforms Made In Heaven into so much more than just a work of dance theatre.

Made In Heaven's strengths lie in its visuals and theatrics - which are so compelling that the dance sequences, very Hartleyesque in their randomness and spontaneity, are less interesting by comparison and halt what little there is of a storyline. Nonetheless, there are some beautiful dance sequences, especially for Cree Barnett Williams and Eleanor Duval, the piece's protagonist, with evocative and expressive duets.

One of Made In Heaven's more bizarre - if that is possible - devices is to cast Rick Bland in multiple roles, from a blind sheriff to what appears to be a blind sheriff cross-dressing as a soon-to-be-blinded nun.  

It's hard to write about Made In Heaven without enthusing about the dramatics of each scene in turn; suffice to say that the combination of the stage and lighting design effectively transform the atmospheric setting of Wilton's Music Hall into a claustrophobic stormy island, while the staging works so naturally with the split stage of Wilton's that it's easy to assume it was created with such a stage in mind - for example, the upper stage forming a shoreline alongside the billowing blue cloth manipulated by the dancers to create waves: sometimes with a mermaid shifting underneath, or with a fully-articulated shark gliding above.

Don't be deceived by the inocuous trailer for Made In Heaven: you can be certain that you won't see anything else like this for a long time to come, and "dance theatre" doesn't start to describe the experience that is Mark Bruce's storytelling.

 

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Dance 1:1

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Category: Reviews
Published: Tuesday, 05 June 2012 21:44
Written by Jessica Wilson

Dance 1:1 (Dance 1st on the 1st) marks a significant event for the Accidental Festival, produced by students from the Central School of Speech and Drama: dance had never been included in the festival’s programme before 2012, and the night was a success for all those involved. Dance 1:1 presented works by five emerging and upcoming London-based choreographers of relatively new dance companies, providing a solid platform for these aspiring artists to further develop their exciting careers.

NineBOBNote opened the evening, presenting As Yet Unknown as a piece inspired by the exploration of the power of female sexuality and the seduction of freedom of choice. The trio were mesmerising and extremely charismatic, forming a dance theatre company under the direction of Lyndsey Allan. Fusing spoken word, seemingly genuine laughter – from both the performers and the enthusiastic audience – and bare flesh, the performers were inspiring in their embrace of the female body and the mysteries of the female allure. Real life and personal experience were drawn upon, encouraging the audience to connect with the issues addressed through the creation of a work which was both entertaining and engaging.

SAAD Dance presented an original piece of dance, Think Outside, choreographed by Marc Saad, focusing on man in his many states in relation to the constant media bombardment of the twentieth century. Whilst the movement quality was organic and intense, the piece in its entirety became all too predictable. To convey oneself through movement as a fresh and unaffected being of the elements surrounding our worlds is a huge challenge, and whilst Saad’s movement itself was unique, the concept behind the performance was unfortunately lost.

Similarly, dt.Ellipsis presented It Started with a Riff, which set out to investigate the work of famous duos such as Morecambe and Wise, The 2 Ronnies and Laurel and Hardy, but it appeared to be more of a stage school effort than a thoughtprovoking analysis of the relationships of famous duos. Whilst the concept lent itself to much anticipation of dt.Ellipses's piece and its inspiration of silent films and slapstick comedy, the final product suggested that much development was needed to reach the goal of the performers.

Following the interval was Wise Man by Charlie Dixon Dance Company, presenting an animalistic view of the power and skill of dancers. The intensity of the company was constantly present in their performance and interactions with each other, embodying an extremely energetic and intricate style of strength and endurance. Dixon’s artistic direction places an emphasis on highly technical and explosive bodily movement, with each dancer undertaking a personal test of skill and attack, set to carry the company on a long and successful journey into the future. Whilst the movement was aesthetically pleasing, it remained innovative and varying, rather than resorting to familiar movement phrases which are seen so regularly.

Closing the programme was Emco Dance, a company comprised of second-year Laban students. The focus and dedication of the dancers was commendable, questioning the physical deconstruction of the human body and the emotional, physical and mental elements which we consist of. Intimate duets were performed with conviction and were captivating, linking trust, power and the art of performance in an impressive piece. Considering the dancers are only halfway through their vocational training, it was rewarding to view Emco alongside four professional dance companies, each bringing an important dance message to their performances. Powerful collisions and a testosterone-inspired section showcased the five male dancers, demonstrating their strength and flexibility. The women, meanwhile, were united in their display of the passion which drives the young performer and the unique skills they must have to fulfil this.
 

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CODA Dance

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Category: Reviews
Published: Tuesday, 05 June 2012 21:39
Written by Emily Peckham

In the gorgeous underground surroundings of the The Hub at the Roundhouse, the lights came up on two dancers sitting with their knees up before tipping into a fetal position and slowly moving in a clockwork motion.

CODA Dance was formed in 2010 by London-based choreographer Nikki Watson, a graduate of Roehampton University. Since their formation they have performed at Platform AD and Resolution! at The Place.

You Remind Me of Someone I Once Knew is the fourth piece from CODA Dance and tells the story of a daughter dealing her mother’s diagnosis of multiple sclerosis. The linear performance depicts the stages of grief: for example denial, anger and bargaining, from different characters' perspectives.

The CODA dancers Kimberly Collins and Georgia-Leigh Godfrey presented a caring and moving portrayal of their characters. Standout moments included the use of different directions, the contact work in the duets, and the combination of fast moments followed by intimate moments. A really lovely scene involved one dancer tracing the footsteps of the other while she was moving on the floor.

Perhaps in telling us the theme of the story prior to the performance performance, I expected a clearer narrative to unfold, and I found myself looking for the five stages of grief. There were sections of the piece which could have been explored more but this could have been down to it only being 15 minutes long.  

In conclusion, the dancers have a very strong connection and the choreography is beautiful: CODA Dance is definitely a company to watch!
 

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Verve

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Category: Reviews
Published: Monday, 04 June 2012 20:33
Written by Lewis Wheeler

Verve, the postgraduate performance company of the Northern School of Contemporary Dance, performed a mixed bill, including work by Lea Anderson, Akram Khan and New Adentures Choreograper Award winner James Cousins, to a packed house at The Place. This is a company of technically strong dancers who share a common strength and solidity in their physicality which the various works showed off to full advantage.

First up was Let Go by Milan Kozanek, which was billed as being formed from 'hidden impulses in the body that create the outward visible movements' and that the material was created by the dancers allowing their bodies to fall and collapse while moving with stones in their hands. This sounded like an interesting premise for a dance work, and the piece certainly began promisingly with the dancers dramatically exploding across the stage and then forming various clusters and groupings while moving across the floor in a strange alien almost centipede-like fashion. It was like watching a David Attenborough documentary of an insect life form, especially as the work invited an anthropomorphistic reading as the 'centipedes' formed various social groupings, seemingly mated and fought, while outsiders circled warily and large groups curled up comfortably together on the floor.

From this powerful beginning with well-developed and non-human movement vocabulary, an evolution occurred and very quickly all the dancers were walking upright and the piece changed into a display of standard contemporary technique style choreography and, worst of all, employed several times the awful contemporary dance cliché of all the dancers rushing towards one corner of the stage and staring outwards for prolonged periods of time, anticipation building, before dispersing with nothing of note actually happening. I actually had to check the programme to see whether the company had moved onto the next piece of the evening as this section seemingly bore no relationship to the far more interesting section that had happened previously.

The second piece was my first chance to see James Cousins' choreography. I was slightly apprehensive that all the promotion he has received would make it more disappointing if I didn't like his work, but rewardingly that proved not to be a problem. Dark in the Afternoon was a forceful, muscular duet which used a tribal, ritualistic movement vocabulary to explore a complex, dysfunctional relationship between its dancers. Cousins' eye for detail was apparent with as much attention having been paid to the rhythm of the movement, particularly with contrasting 'impacts' and 'impulses' and to the postioning of the body in space, as to the actual shapes the dancers were making. The phrasing and musicality built into the choreography was extremely strong and this was danced beautifully, although somewhat hyper-technically. The piece was supposed to be about a difficulty to communicate on an emotional level between the dancers, and there was a definite disconnection between them although I felt at times this was because they were pushing the performance of the material as far as they could, rather than because of the work's theme. Perhaps this was one of their 'preoccupations' but I would have liked to have seen them perform with more depth to their characterisation, more heart and less technical showing off.

The premise of For Dear Life by Jordan Massarella was the one I found most interesting in the programme, billed as a celebration of a state of mind of magical thinking: a belief that if you hope for something enough, or perform the right actions, a seemingly unavoidable event can be averted; unless you learn to accept change you will always suffer. Unfortunately, the choreography was relatively clunky and literal. The majority of the stage was quite dark and there was broad strip of bright light downstage. Most of the dancers spent the majority of their time searching about in the dark while one in particular had grasped the benefit of being in the strip of light and was repeatedly drawn back to it. The movement itself started off relatively conventional and safe but soon became a lot more interesting. Tom Tindall particularly stood out: his performance was very expressive and melancholy whereas the majority of the dancers were moving wonderfully but not emotionally.

The ending of the piece was the most interesting with the majority of the dancers having been "enlightened" in the downstage strip of light except for Tindall. While the other dancers had had their burdens lifted from them, he was left in dark throes of writhing and performed some incredible transitions into and out of the floor. At the end of the piece, he managed to reach the other dancers and was pulled into an embrace with one: had he reached a redemption of sorts? Perhaps he had just accepted his fate. The idea for this piece has a lot of potential but would benefit from more of the positive thinking being danced rather than mimed (the negative emotions were expressed powerfully through movement), and for more subtlety to be applied to its staging.

The comedic talents of the dancers were brought to the fore in Lea Anderson's (formerly artistic director of the now sadly disbanded Cholmondeleys and Featherstonehaughs) Dynamo. Describing this piece in a single sentence, the programme stated that Dynamo is 'a syncopated engine assembled by nine constructivist components in a tripartite of accelerating machinations'. The dry tone belied the humour that Anderson found in using the dancers as components in machine-style combinations. Each dancer was dressed differently in colourfully-checked A-line dresses which called to mind hippies and 'flowers in your hair' while they danced as small cogs in a much larger machine.

The choreography worked best when the individual movement of the dancers, even when performing the same actions, was incorporated. There will always be an incongruity between different bodies attempting to do the same thing at the same time, and the choreography riffed on this to great effect. In the third 'machine', the music took on a driving beat, almost like pop or dance music but not that cheesy, and the overall effect was similar to watching an interesting music video: think along the lines of Kylie's 'Can't get you outta my head' when they are wearing the red plastic hoods/visors. Especially enjoyable was when the piece took on a fashion catwalk tone and the dancers started manipulating and controlling each other like dolls; this was heightened by the dancers’ exaggerated frozen facial expressions, almost grimacing but in a funny rather than menacing way. The cohesion in its composition and the way the piece thoroughly explored its premise showed how masterful Anderson is of her craft.

Vertical Road by Akram Khan is an incredible piece of dance theatre drawing on inspiration from Sufi culture - think Islamic purification of the body, mysticism and whirling dervishes. This piece was extremely well-suited to the company as the movement language was full of strength, power and the force of gravity which matched the dancers' muscular style. The choreography interlaced many layers of complex movement patterns, intricate and rapidly-changing groupings and formations and also very strong characterisation. This piece and Anderson's Dynamo seemed to show almost a different company from the first three pieces of the evening as the performance standard and commitment to the artistic themes of the work drove the pieces, rather than the dancers moving through them while displaying their ability and facility. Like Cousins' Dark in the afternoon, the movement had a strong ritualistic, almost tribal, quality but in using the full company of dancers, Khan was able to create a whole theatrical world out of this material. We saw the dancers progress from their earthbound existences which culminated in an incredible solo by Eshe Blake-Bandele where she began to reach her ascendance towards God. The intensity with which she danced provided the most kinaesthetic experience of the evening: I can still feel the memory of the energy she transmitted to the audience as she pulsed and whirled, pounded and sweated.

I was blown away by this work and will certainly aim to see this piece and Dynamo again when Verve return to London on the 12th of June at the Linbury Studio Theatre at the ROH, as should you.
 

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Royal Ballet: Prince of the Pagodas

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Category: Reviews
Published: Sunday, 03 June 2012 02:20
Written by David Wilson

In one of her final decisions as Director of the Royal Ballet, Dame Monica Mason has revived Kenneth MacMillan's 1989 work "The Prince of the Pagodas". A reworking of John Cranko's original piece to a commissioned Benjamin Britten score, it tells the tale of Belle Rose, the youngest daughter of the Emperor of a mysterious land. After her jealous older sister, Belle Épine, discovers her father's plan to leave most of his kingdom to Belle Rose, she transforms her sister's Prince into a Salamander and banishes him to the Kingdom of the Flying Frogs (seriously). The Emperor tries to marry Belle Épine off to a collection of Kings from far off lands, but when they see Belle Rose they ignore Belle Épine, prompting her to steal her father's throne and hold court with her entourage of baboons (again, seriously). Belle Rose travels to rescue her Prince and in the process grows into a confident woman, brave enough to return and confront her sister and recover the Empire for her father. The happy couple end up getting married, officiated by a mischievous Fool (who seemingly moonlights as a Priest), and live happily ever after, albeit in a most peculiar setting.

At the heart of it, Pagodas is about Belle Rose's journey. Originally choreographed for Darcey Bussell, it was a big role to fill, but Marianela Nuñez did just that, giving a graceful yet powerful performance as the young heroine. One of the top ballerinas in the country, her musicality is second-to-none, and it is needed for Britten's Gamelan-influenced score. Stepping delicately across the irregular rhythms, Nuñez is as impressive with floating posé arabesques as she is leaping across the stage (one grand jeté in particular had so much height it garnered a gasp from me).

As the Prince, Nehemiah Kish gave arguably his best performance yet at the Royal Opera House. His portrayal of the transfigured Prince made for a bittersweet second act, the final image of Belle Rose comforting the poor creature being particularly memorable.

The jealous sister, Belle Épine, was played by the inimitable Tamara Rojo. Milking the role for all its worth, she strutted around the stage, flirted with both Kings and baboons, and attacked the choreography with vigour. Unfortunately, Belle Épine's role has been cut down significantly  in this revival, leaving her with little to do outside of Act I.

Supporting roles were all admirably danced. Of particular note was Alexander Campbell as the interfering Fool and all four suitors: Bennet Gartside, Valeri Hristov, Steven McRae and Ricardo Cervera. With shockingly exaggerated characters, they offered welcome light relief to the first act, but then turned sinister (and, for some reason, bald) for the second act while tormenting Belle Rose in the Other World. Credit must also go to the superb design team, although I was less enamoured with some of the costumes. Although effective whilst dancing, the sisters' half-skirts seemed rather unladylike and the Kings' costumes seemed very dated. And why were the baboons the best-dressed characters of all?

Pagodas is not a perfect work, in fact it is far from it. There are many components that I would happily cut or alter: the swarm of baboons in the first act and the Courtiers in Act III immediately spring to mind for making their acts feel slightly laboured. Contrasting this, however, are some stunning pas de deux sections between Belle Rose and her Prince in each act (featuring some devilish lifts and promenades) and clever segments for all three main characters with the suitors (requiring a very trusting Belle Épine being thrown from King to King). I would argue that these more than make up for the weaker sections, although others may disagree.

There is much in Pagodas to divide opinion: the score, the story, the corps sections and more. However, the performances bring this piece alive and the chance to see Marianela Nuñez and Tamara Rojo dance on the same stage is worth the ticket price alone. It has been 16 years since The Prince of the Pagodas last graced the Royal Opera House stage and I, for one, am glad it is back. Judging by the rapturous applause throughout the auditorium, I may not be alone.
 

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Noé Soulier / Frauke Requardt & Freddie Opoku-Addaie

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Category: Reviews
Published: Friday, 01 June 2012 09:59
Written by Lewis Wheeler

Noé Soulier's Le Royaume des Ombres (The Kingdom of Shades) was a very analytical, almost clinical look at 19th century ballet. Dressed in a loose grey tshirt and tiny blue shorts, he looked more like he was in the rehearsal studio rather than on-stage but this suited well his experiments with balletic movement material. The first of these experiments involved taking the movement vocabulary of ballet i.e. allongé, arabesque, balancé and performing these actions in alphabetical order. As there was no musical accompanient to Soulier's work, we could hear through his breathing how much effort was being exerted to perform these actions, particularly as they lacked their natural preparation steps which would have been especially useful to aid his take off in the various jetés. Next, he performed simply the preparation steps which, somewhat surprisingly, seemed to contain a lot more movement and travel than the previous sequence. Whereas the previous movement had been spatial and structural, now suddenly Soulier was darting around the stage. Pas de bourrés and glissades without their attendant pirouettes and jetés were particularly amusing to watch, and it showed the original material for what it really was: a series of impressive tricks. Further exploring these ideas, Soulier went on to rearrange solos from, amongst others, La Bayadère, Giselle and Swan Lake, performing both male, female and 'fantastic mystical being' roles and splicing up the material into an original arrangement.

Without music or any prevalent sense of aesthetic design overall, this felt quite soulless to me. It was perhaps interesting to see that it takes more than just putting balletic movement material in a sequence in order to make it expressive, but it's not really very enlightening. What was interesting, however, was to see how close to his process Soulier had taken us, and how vulnerable he seemed on stage. His frequent trips to his water bottle and the period he spent talking and marking through the next sequences he was going to perform while trying to catch his breath highlighted how disguised the natural requirements of the human body are in dance and in particular in ballet. I felt quite uncomfortable when Soulier was trying to talk but was barely able to as he could hardly breathe and yet you could see the weight of the audience's expectation upon him to perform for us. I did suspect that this was a highly-orchestrated interlude, as although he didn't appear suitably recovered from his previous exertions, he proceeded to move upstage and suddenly exploded into his most virtuosic and expansive grand allegro dancing of the performance. Perhaps it was all an illustration of his point but as anyone watching who has dance experience will recognise, the suffering and the pushing of the body is a very real part of dance and Soulier bravely exposed this to the audience whereas many dancers would prefer to conceal it.

Continuing with the 19th century ballet theme, D'un pays lointain (From Another Land) was a fascinatingly playful exploration of balletic mime from this period in ballet history. Opening with a sequence of theatrical gestures with the more literal mime being relatively easy to interpret and some gestures which could have 'meant' anything as far as I was concerned, this quickly become a very detailed conversation between two dancers. When the voice over started, the more abstract gestures became understandable; gestures became literal and by seeing similar gestures together, we could begin to see how the vocabulary of this form worked. Through clever juxtaposition of dancers and voiceover, we saw how the same gesture could could have multiple related meanings either with synonyms i.e. damn, condemn and imprison or in a visual sense, much like the grammar of sign language, with swan and fly having the same mimed action. To a cascading soundscape of words, complex compositional pictures were built as the number of dancers accumulated. Poetic rhythmic patterns like the 'rounds' of Frère Jacques became visible, the statuesque structure of the dancers' bodies built pictures like photographs and the multiple streams of action became so complex at one point that it felt like watching multiple TV news channels simultaneously. This piece was very entertaining and showed how interesting pantomime can be when it it is deployed creatively rather than to communicate plot that would either take too long or be too open to varying interpretations through dance.

The absolute highlight of the evening was Fidelity Project, choreographed and performed by Frauke Requardt and Freddie Opoku-Addaie, which was originally commissioned for The Place Prize in 2010. This was a complex piece which moved with lightning speed from gentle, tender embraces to shockingly explosive violence. Requardt is the type of dancer who you can't take your eyes off when she is onstage. Her sharp features framed by a Sassoon-style bob and obvious strength in her body belie a readily accessible emotional vulnerability in performance. Opoku-Addaie moved fluidly between tenderness, 'lost boy' and writhing agony and the combination of the two created an enigmatic and beautiful duet.

The pink popcorn vending stall provided a cheerful set and sensory overload as the smell of the popping corn filled the auditorium. Its explosive action and the moreish desire it inspired provided the perfect metaphor for the relationship between the dancers and the reason they kept returning to each other despite the consequences of their partnering.

This was a great triple bill of threee very different works, and if it hadn't been for the detachment I felt because of the clinical analysis of the first piece, it would have been a 4 star evening.
 

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Edinburgh Fringe Reviews