Saturday: Bryony Cooper

It's been two years since Cloud Dance Festival last provided a platform for the abundance of emerging choreographic talent, but they returned on Saturday the 6th of July for their second evening at the intimate Bernie Grant Arts Centre in north London to present Lacuna, a programme highly anticipated and certainly one of all sorts.

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Saturday: Natalia Okeke

A duet between two adept performers, Timeless is a display of the many talents of Merritt Moore's and Adam Kirkham’s work. Their repertory rooted in classical ballet, the piece draws mostly upon this, expanding with a use of contemporary technique. When together, they create stunning lines between them; in one particular striking moment, he catches her foot when she hits an arabesque, a stunning length connecting the dancers. Much of the work is performed along one line as well, the dancers restricting themselves to a metaphorical central conveyer moving both ways between the left and right. This makes the short piece even more compact, yet impressive with expansive technique bursting through their restricted space. There is almost too much packed into this short piece and at times the piece reads as more of portfolio for the dancers rather than a complete choreography. It has almost a showdance feel to it, which although appearing a critique placing them more in a commercial circle, could work wonders for the pair if they choose to tap into a market that rarely sees contemporary choreographers break through. Choreographically stunted, but performance-wise, a beautiful technical display.

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Sunday: Natalia Okeke

The moment a bag of oranges drop and roll across the entire stage at the outset of this piece, you know you’re in for something a little different. Ieva Kuniskis's physical theatre piece Gone To Get Milk employs humour, mime and gesture with an accomplished dance vocabulary thrown in.

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Friday: Natalia Okeke

The opening piece of the first night of Cloud Dance Festival's first festival for two years is THEM, a new work by Ella Robson Guilfoyle. A guitarist takes seat downstage right, loop pedal at her feet, as a quartet of females appear diagonally opposite. For the most part, they travel the stage as a unit of four, a diamond formation seeing them across the stage, but at times dropping into solos or duets. The correlation between live music and the dancers brings together the ideas set out in the programme note of echoes and repetitions. Singer Bethany Aggett’s words repeat on the loop pedal, “little wheel spin - big wheel spin”, a dancer’s floorwork echoing this as she spins on the ground.

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