In over 13 years of watching Resolution!, this is the first time I've attended the opening night, and fittingly, it encapsulated the essence of Resolution well: a platform for new and young choreographers to experiment, try out new ideas, new collaborations and to take their first steps in choreography.

 

The opening work was 'Simones' by Léa Tirabasso, which sought to explore "the absurdity of women's condition", with the title music by Alex Judd. A work bursting with ideas, it veered from theatricality to abstract movement, with scenes such as childbirth, disco dancing and generally writhing on the floor. Uncannily, it was reminiscent of Lost Dog's 'It Needs Horses', with Elsa Petit as Anna Finkel's character adjusting to an all-female environment. 'Simones' had some interesting movement and moments of humour, if rather sparsely scattered across its 15 minutes.


The middle piece of the night was 'Fill In The Blanks' by the Anything Goes Collective, a new project by Ashley Hind. The programme notes were deliberately vague, but 'Fill In The Blanks' appeared to be a work exploring people in their inner world when listening to music or playing with their phones, although one could easily think it's about headphones, for the significance they had throughout the piece! We watched the dancers bobbing to music, playing with their phones, talking on the phone, and an impressive duet between Ashley Hind and Luke Brown.

'Fill In The Blanks' started with a spontaneous and interesting organic premise, and it resisted the temptation to digress, as so many Resolution works tend to do. Further bonuses were the quality of Anything Goes's dancers, and their movement, which incorporated different dance styles depending on the dancer.

We don't know where Ashley Hind will be going, but it'll be an interesting journey, especially if collaboration, experimentation and play continue to feature significantly in his work.


Closing the opening night was James Finnemore's latest work 'Oh|Glory'. A former Hofesh Shechter dancer, and currently dancing with Punchdrunk, there was predictable curiosity about how these two companies would influence his work.

James Finnemore has a beautiful natural movement style - as appreciated in his last two solos, 'Patriot' and 'In The Dust', and it was interesting to see his movement superimposed on other dancers' bodies, and the blending of his own choreographic style and the dancers' own movement.

A seemingly more confident work than James's previous pieces, 'Oh|Glory' was also the most theatrical of his recent works, using silence and staging for storytelling, and with more randomness, too - perhaps a Punchdrunk influence?

'Oh|Glory' is an introspective work, in its own world, and one which at times excludes the audience. Although high on intent, 'Oh|Glory' feels like a sparse work - a complete contrast to 'Simones', which stuggled to squeeze everything in before the end. Let's hope James gets the chance to develop 'Oh|Glory' further: it has the potential to be a fascinating work.