Barefoot
Footprint Dance Festival
Michaelis Theatre
University of Roehampton
Thursday 14th May 2015
Ending Footprint Dance Festival’s Barefoot performances was
a dazzling performance by Feet Off The Ground Dance. Having graduated from
London Contemporary Dance School in 2013, the collective use their training in
Contact Improvisation extensively in choreography. Passenger uses Contact Improvisation to explore notions of
femininity and strength.
Assisted by a live musician onstage, four women seize the
space, lunging, running, rolling and falling. The dancers support one another
using juicy transfers of weight and making unpredictable changes of direction.
Syrupy floorwork seamlessly shifts the women's weight from back, to shins, to
hands as they slip across the space. Live music played by Ashley Molloy-South
sets a strong sense of rhythm and pace, establishing the high energy of the
work from the outset.
The dancers physically manipulate and alter one another’s
movements, direction and speed, demonstrating the power of the individual and
of the group. Catching dancer Sophie Thorpe, as she suspends and falls back,
the group take her weight, drag her to the other side of the space and carefully
lay her down. Passenger seems to
be a manifestation of the coexistence of strength and support that exists within
the relationships between women. While there are obvious moments of manipulation
and control, there are also instances of group support that seem to thread
throughout the work.
Effortless and athletic jumps, lifts and transfers of weight
reveal the dancers’ first class training from London Contemporary Dance School.
However, it is the dancers’ complete conviction and belief in the choreography
that captures and draws the audience in from the moment it begins.
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