The closing day of Cloud Dance Festival: Parade met a sold-out auditorium packed with eager dance viewers hungry for what was billed as a ‘Best Of’ special. Welcoming back some of the audience favourites from past festivals, the line-up boasted an exciting evening of contemporary dance.
Sunday 6th December 2009 and Cloud Dance Festival returned with its latest showcase Parade. As usual this last choreographic platform of the year was an assortment of various styles and offerings.
An honoured Bethnal Green played host to the final festival of 2009 produced by Cloud Dance Festival. Once again Cloud Dance Festival is back with a programme of exciting, innovative and groundbreaking pieces, giving London the opportunity to witness emerging and professional companies alike present their new work. This season, Cloud Dance Festival: Parade acts as a ‘best of’ for the festivals with companies selected by Cloud Dance Festival from this year’s previous events. Sunday evening saw a full house support seven organisations showcase their most recent works.
Cloud Dance Festival was developed in response to a lack of platforms for contemporary choreographers to share their work. Parade was a weekend of new pieces and some of the highlights from previous festivals. Housed in the cosy People Show Studios in Bethnal Green, Parade was so popular that it was over-subscribed on opening night!
As we are invited to take our seats and enter the theatre two dancers are casually moving in the space. Festival and nagune (wayfarer), choreographed by Ji Park, is an engaging work from the very beginning. As we enter the theatre two dancers are casually moving in the space. This unconventional framing breaks down the barrier between the audience and performers, connecting us with the dancers from the offset. In the centre of the stage stands a stack of books, this symbolic representation of all the order in our lives becomes a crucial element in the piece. As the dancers work to reorganise the stack, and we experience them struggling with the heavy load we are able to share the burden and effort. The sense relief when the books start to fall from their arms is felt by the audience and dancers alike.