Last night's triple bill reinforced that Resolution! is ultimately about creating a space in which new and less-new choreographers can experiment artistically in a "safe" environment, largely consisting of family and friends, as we were reminded with Attach Dance Company's raucous welcome by the audience. Sometimes the results are less successful than others, but that's simply part of their process of developing as artists.


The feel of experimentation is especially true for Yuyu Rau, who has collaborated with musician Liz Liew for Snapshots, her third Resolution! creation, and the first one she has performed in herself. Beauty Unveiled, her 2010 Resolution! work, was a very polished piece, launching her distinctive Chinese-contemporary style, while her 2012 work, Beloved Emoh, was an extremely introspective and personal piece, and Snapshots explored the emotions surrounding a number of Liew's memories.

From the opening scene, where Rau appeared to be a delighted sprite in a Grecian red dress, with echoes of Isadora Duncan, we were taken through a range of mostly happy memories, although the most interesting parts of Rau's choreography were when she returned to her Chinese-influenced style of dance; her dramatic facial expressions during these sections was a reminder of Rau's ability to captivate the Sadler's Wells audience during her The Most Incredible Thing performances. These sections were all too brief, however, and by comparison, the rest of the choreography seemed to lack challenge and complexity.

Despite being 25 minutes in length, Snapshots could easily become a significantly longer work, with the wealth of Liew's memories - hinted at through her childhood snapshots at the end - to plunder, however Snapshots was made to feel longer than it actually was, with frequent costume changes and musical interludes and too-short scenes. Dennis Kwong Thye Lee's performance on the guzheng (Chinese zither) was breathtaking, and Rau is always an enjoyable dancer to watch, but last night's performance felt like the start of a long and interesting journey for Snapshots before it reaches completion.


By contrast, David Willdridge's Leave Elegance To The Tailor was a confident, understated work: the type of piece which makes people fall in love with contemporary dance.

Officially about the distortion of memories, Leave Elegance offered the audience the opportunity to relish watching two extremely good dancers move, from Willdridge's fluid, animal-like grace in the opening scene, to his powerful and haunting duets with Daniela B Larsen. Larsen seemed a little underused at times, but in the context of the programme notes, she appeared to be the embodiment of past memories - making the work sometimes reminiscent of The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Leave Elegance To The Tailor was an unexpected treat, and one to be savoured. Please can we have more performances of this?


Di-Vide, by Attach Dance Company, was a sharp departure from Andy Macleman's and Drew Hawkins's Drone, which had been performed at the Bob Lockyer celebrations (read our review) last April - Resolution! again proving itself to be an opportunity for new choreographers to explore with ideas and styles. While Drone had been an understated and simple work, Macleman and Hawkins clearly wanted to offer much much more in Di-Vide, with little remaining from Drone apart from their stillness in motion.

Di-Vide was a work in two halves, itself divided by the music, with Lucien Dubuis's La Danse des Machines creating a jaunty, Charlestonesque feel, contrasting with the seriousness of the second half, with music by Haxan Cloak.

The programme notes offered several definitions for "divide", and this was perhaps most notable in the difference in choreography for the two women (Hannah Wintie and Emily Thompson-Smith) compared with that for Macleman and Hawkins, which made the same-sex duets far more effective than the mixed-sex duets; the men's strong partnership was evident in the confidence and ease of their partnerwork.

Ultimately, however, the other three dancers struggled to match Macleman's prowess, although in one scene, Wintie echoed a breathtaking solo by Macleman, and was also whipped around in the air by Hawkins.

Di-Vide showed a lot of promise, and it was refreshing to see Macleman and Hawkins explore with shifting dynamics, different styles and different dancers - let's see what they create next!