For this year’s Short + Sweet Dance Week 1, I was able to see the very exciting second ‘company’ , Company B . (There are four ‘ companies ‘ in all over the two weeks in the dance division) . As in the other Short+Sweet’ heat , it was an invigorating , challenging mix of short works of roughly ten minutes each . There was a very wide range of works, some brilliant, some rather disappointing. A couple of the works could really be described as ‘cutting edge’ and /or bizarre. All the works had powerful, passionate performances .
Technically in dance styles it ranged from including hip-hop and break dance to ‘contemporary ‘ with some balletic movements thrown in , although there was no pointe work at all in the entire programme. Footware ranged from none to trainers or plastic gumboots and wet socks. Quite a few of the works were ‘plotless’ but most however did have a theme or narrative running through them.
For me my favourite works were the very strong opening and closing short pieces that were incredible solo performances.
The program opened very strongly with ‘Ctrl’ choreographed and performed by James Andrews. Andrews was in a semi transparent top and white shorts, and to a powerful throbbing electric soundtrack he began with small, almost robotic movements that gradually expanded and included the long, stretched line of sizzling legs. Andrews had a distinctive ‘epaulement’. Sometimes there were sculptural poses, at others rippling fluid movement and a very demanding use of a flexible back. Were we meant to pick up possible allusions to Matthew Bournes ‘ Dorian Grey’ and ‘Swan Lake’ and the narcissism of Robbin’s ‘Afternoon of a Faune’?!.
‘Serenity’ which included the unusual use of a Tibetan singing bowl, had the three performers in creamy white ,elegant Grecian like tunics/leotards .There was an atmosphere of floating , of simply breathing. It was captivating and hypnotic, lyrical and expressive. There was no pointe work (but exquisitely pointed feet) and I particularly thought of Balanchine’s ‘Apollo’ and Ashton’s ‘Symphonic Variations’ .
’Familiar Strangers’, about gossip and celebrities, by Joseph Simons , contrasted wild yet liquid movements with small ,very controlled gestures . It began with Simons naughtily posing in just black underpants. He then gets dressed in casual black dance gear and there is some break dance/hip hop floor work and angular contortionist like movements. To a yodelling song we see how small gestures can change from passive to threatening or vice versa (eg answering a mobile phone sweepingly becomes a gun ) and speech is combined with elements of sign language. Most impressive.
‘Microcosm’ choreographed by Maya Gavish was a fascinating, rather strange pas de deux of mirroring of movements and sounds.
‘Sink or Swim’ as choreographed by Natalie Pelarek was definitely an audience favourite. Some found it hilarious. It was vmutilayered in meaning with allusions to works by Meryl Tankard, Pina Bausch and Busby Berkley.
Some of it was very exuberant and witty. At one point we see one of the performers very carefully take out a number of eggs hidden inside her bra, cover them with kisses and place them in a large picnic basket. But why does she go mad, destroy a photo and her teddy bear and break and whisk the eggs and throw egg all over her head! There is a delightful sequence with most of the cast in wetsuits goggles and flippers ‘swimming’.
‘Girls Getting Bitter’ choreographed by Eva Crainean was quite disturbing – the three excellent women with their ‘Coin Operated Boy ‘ ( to the Dresden Dolls song) were sort of a mix of 1930’s acrobatic , burlesque , cabaret vamps and merciless , teasing femme fatales who treat him horrifically.
The closing work, ‘Lachlan’, choreographed and performed by Alison Plevey, was a fabulous evocation of life on the land, with squeaky gumboots and squelchy wet socks. The soundscape was of a heavy rainfall . Tall ,leggy Plevey with backbends, stretches and rolling floorwork, brings a sort of cross between Cunningham and de Quincey feel to this work (in some ways it is quite ‘Body Weather’) to this nature inspired piece that is an inspired joy and also seems to echo with loneliness.
Short+ Sweet Dance Week One ( Companies A and B ) played at the New Theatre between the 22nd and the 25th January, 2014.
Week 2 starts this Wednesday