REVIEW: Resolution!: Sigh, Pauline Raineri, Foskett-Piccolo Dance Company

Sat 31 Jan

The Place

Resolution!

Sigh Kasa

Pauline Raineri Si | Si

Foskett-Piccolo Dance Company Woven

I had a great deal of hope for Sigh tonight. A theatrical opening sees a performer gliding through a bright corridor of light with a Japanese oil-paper umbrella. Light hearted expressions of surprise with toothy smiles charm us. But sequences of desperate clutching, unrelenting longing gazes, and the ascension of the umbrella on a wire cable soon indicate the subject of dark obsession. Yet, despite the potential within Kasa’s themes, a solid connection between the dancers is needed for the themes to be fully realised.

In a narrow band of light, which illuminates only their bare legs, dancers Amy Foskett and Giovanna Piccolo flex, flick and pad their feet in slick unison. Pealing their t-shirts over their heads, Woven attempts to explore connections and relationships in the body. Again however, the message needs a little more direction and coherence before we can fully believe in the performance.

Finally, sandwiched between Kasa and Woven, French choreographer Pauline Raineri presents an incredibly honest investigation into the depths of despair and the reality of escape.  At the back of the dark, smoke filled stage dancer Erin O’Reilly is a writhing mass of unfurling arms and trembling limbs. Composer Louis Richard’s bleak landscape of static noise couples fittingly with O’Reilly’s lost expression. She tugs anxiously at her clothes and fingers, stumbling about the stage as she flees an inevitable confrontation. Si | Si is intensely experienced and lived by both soloist and audience. O’Reilly offers a performance with total conviction, which resonates profoundly with everyone.

Maya Pindar

See the official review posted on The Place's Resolution Review! Blog here: http://www.theplace.org.uk/blog/resolution-review-2016/sat-30-jan-foskett-piccolo-dance-companypauline-rainerisigh

#Res2016 

REVIEW: Feet Off The Ground Dance - Éter

Fri 22 Jan 2016

The Place

Resolution!

Feet Off The Ground Dance Éter

Feet Off The Ground Dance opened the night’s triple bill with an intense and exciting performance of Éter. Four women journey through a bleak landscape of gently pulsating lights and electrical whirring. Their organic contact improvisation sets them apart from the other acts of the night (which include Maria Lothe/Rachel Blomberg and Unity Dance Company UK). Being an all-female company, dancers Lucia Chocarro, Robyn Holder, Sophie Thorpe and Patricia Zafra prove that femininity and strength are synonymously connected.

Visually, Feet Off The Ground Dance are incredibly exciting to watch. They slip seamlessly from moments of unison to intricate pairings, intertwining limbs and locking foreheads. The tone changes as live musician Panos Chountoulidis’ score intensifies. The women are like beasts. We can see the exhaustion in their pained expressions, as they hunt and chase each other through the space.

Interestingly, it is a non-contact martial arts passage, which interrupts the flow of intimacy that closes the work. The sudden physical distance between the dancers rounds off Éter quite nicely- despite us wanting a little more from the work. Using repetition and Chountoulidis’ drilling score, Feet Off The Ground Dance create a truly powerful work that highlights and draws upon the dancers’ technical skill and obvious sense of drive.



Maya Pindar

REVIEW: Resolution! Lizzie J Klotz, Maria Fonseca & What is Written Dance Company

20th January 2016
The Place
Resolution!
Lizzie J Klotz To Suit
Maria Fonseca IDADE
What is Written Dance Company Dialect of War

On the face of it, To Suit is an amusing and playful discourse. Some engaging moments see Alys North and Charlie Dearnley stood still, crying out and shrieking- an allusion to Lizzie J Klotz’s investigation of animal courtship- which greatly amuses the audience. However, somewhere between putting two fingers up to the man and disco dancing to a Bach Brandenburg Concerto, Klotz seems to lose her way. To Suit has a great deal of potential, but needs a little more coherence.

 ‘I never sin halfway’ remarks Anne Burgi, as she admits to her guilty pleasures of ice cream and chocolate. And indeed Maria Fonseca’s refreshing examination of ageing in IDADE is thoroughly considered. Fonseca plays the role of a curious young woman, while Burgi muses on the revelations of maturity. The women are inseparable in their connection. They slip between crisp gestural phrases and quirky counterbalances, gently shifting one over the other’s shoulder or hip. Overall, IDADE is honest and frank in discussing the happiness and fear that comes with the inevitability of ageing.

With its fusions of contemporary and hip-hop, What is Written Dance Company’s provocative performance of Dialect of War ended the night on a high. An uncertain opening of flashing lights and jarring floorwork thankfully gave way to a high energy performance. Sia Gbamoi and Viviana Rocha move in crisp unison, executing percussive isolations muddled with loose-limbed, whirling arms. Shifts in lighting, pounding music and changing spatial formations create a well-rounded work. There is a sense of struggle, as the dancers push against their own exhaustion and the driving rhythm of David Devyne and Jean Pierre’s original score. The tone remains primal throughout, reflecting the strength communities call upon in the struggle for survival.


Maya Pindar



See the official review posted on The Place's Resolution Review! Blog here: http://www.theplace.org.uk/blog/resolution-review-2016/tues-19-jan-lizzie-j-klotzmaria-fonsecawhat-written-dance-company

#Res2016

REVIEW: Sasha Waltz & Guests 'Sacre' - 'a storm of fog, grit and earthy tones'

Sasha Waltz & Guests
Sadler's Wells
Friday 13th November 2015

Sasha Waltz is one of Germany's most current choreographers. Experimenting with the boundary between dance and opera, it comes as no surprise that Waltz has taken on Stravinsky's masterpiece in this triple bill. Interestingly, gender seems to be a common theme that threads through L'Après Midi d'un Faune, Scène d'Amour, and Sacre. Men and women are both divided and united throughout the works.

L'Après Midi d'un Faune is a surprisingly colourful affair, with bright patterned leotards and backdrop. The tone is lazy and seductive- heads roll back, lips part, knees are pushed apart and backs arch as Debussy's score rises and falls. Both men and women are just as responsible for one another's pleasure. Yet, aside from the sensuality of the work, the choreography seems somewhat aimless.

Scène d'Amour, an excerpt from Waltz's Roméo et Juliette is exquisite. Both Lorena Justribó Manion and Ygal Tsur defy gravity even when rolling on the floor together. The mood is light and romantic- the couple are blissful. Manion moves effortlessly, darting about the space and slipping seamlessly between Tsur's acrobatic lifts and Waltz's phrases of unison.

Finally, the grand finale of the evening does not disappoint. Sacre is a storm of fog, grit and earthy tones. The stage opens eerily, smoke filled and dark. A large crowd gathers, staring at an enormous pile of ash and gravel at the centre of the stage. Waltz constructs something almost hellish. The dancers are violent and primal, driven by Stravinsky's pounding score. The limp bodies of women litter the stage, as the men charge through, again highlighting the boundaries between genders.

In fact, Waltz toys with gender role reversal- a woman lurches forward, clasping her hands around the struggling body of a man. Will he become the sacrifice? But Waltz only flirts with the idea, before plunging the dancers into a throbbing sultry mass. Clothes are torn away from bodies, skin rubs against skin, and suddenly the dancers’ breathlessness turns to lust.

Finally, as Stravinsky's score intensifies, Sacre begins to reach its final climax. Maria Marta Colusi strips naked for Waltz's conclusion, her muscular body shudders with exhaustion. While all three works are striking, Waltz's exposition of sex and death in Sacre is truly stunning.

REVIEW: BalletBoyz - Young Men: clichéd, shallow, but beautiful

BalletBoyz The TALENT – Young Men 

Sadler’s Wells 

Thursday 8th October 2015

At first glance, choreographer Iván Peréz’s response to the World War One centenary, Young Men is an emotionally charged, dazzling tale of war and friendship. Yet beneath the stories of love and survival, Young Men only glances fleetingly at the unpalatable truths of war.

The opening is heartfelt; a woman wafts about the stage like an autumn leaf, faltering and falling into sumptuous deep lunges. The dancers’ bodies are sinuous in the strings of explosive jumps and whirling arms. The men dive, kick, crawl and roll with the organisation of an army. Peréz drives his dancers in uninterrupted unison, building power, before spilling in waves that peel across the stage. 

However, it is Peréz’s romance with war and death that causes issue. Young Men touches on PTSD in the ‘Shell Shock’ passage, which sees white-faced Andrea Carrucciu naked but for a pair of black shorts. But with Keaton Henson’s overwhelming score of sirens and thundering cello, we not only feel uncomfortable watching Carrucciu’s awkward contortions, but also at the brevity of the exploration. 

While glossy images of freefalling soldiers, with dancers lying face down, arms and legs suspended in the air are aesthetically pleasing, they don’t confront the gritty horror, or the callous sacrifice of a generation of young men. Repetitive tender cradlings distort the senseless loss and mental illness, whilst cliché scenes of dancers torn apart are comforting in their familiarity.

Despite the beauty of the Balletboyz and their commitment to the choreography, Peréz fails to discuss the causes of this tragedy. Clichéd motifs and shallow investigation re-establish an idealised memory of war. Young Men allows us to forget the experience of the generation who died pointlessly under the command of the wealthy. 

Maya Pindar

Why is dance writing important?

Unlike other art forms, such as painting, sculpture, or literature; dance is a fleeting, ephemeral form of art. Dance can not exist outside of the time and space it was performed in. Painting, like sculpture and indeed literature, becomes a physical object that can be touched, relocated and preserved indefinitely. Yet, dance no longer exists in any form outside of the few minutes that it is performed.

Dance writers have the ability to resurrect images of dance movement, as well as reawaken emotions evoked through dance. Given its ephemeral nature, the images, emotions and meanings created through dance are completely lost after the performance has ended. So, the dance writer is given the power to resurrect, physically record and preserve these often intangible facets of dance. 

Therefore, preserving the many interpretations and meanings found in dance- not to mention their historical, cultural and political significance- is of the utmost important to dance writers. 

Additionally, dance writers have the responsibility to write honestly and boldly. What is 'good' dance? And who decides what makes good dance? Other than word-of-mouth, the dance writer is responsible for creating excitement, criticism, recommendation and simply analysing dances. Spectators use dance reviews to decide what performances to watch, and equally which not to watch. In addition, dance artists may also depend on the opinions of dance writers for the success of their performances and tours. 

So why is dance writing important? Dance writing has the invaluable ability to breathe life into the lost images and sentiments that are created in performance. But above all, dance writers hold the key to preserving, or even 'immortalising', an art form that would otherwise be lost.

Dance Film Festival UK 2015 brings another prominent installation of ‘visual beauty’

Dance Film Festival UK provides a much-needed opportunity for dance film artists to engage with new audiences, access professional development opportunities, and to network with other artists. With a complete focus on screendance, Dance Film Festival UK allows artists and spectators alike to immerse in dance film.

The festival day opened with Katie Johnston’s flipbook animation workshop. Specially tailored for dance artists, the workshop explored techniques to capture dance movement in drawing. Meanwhile, throughout the day the audience were invited to leave the buzz of the festival and enter Private Cinema Installations. Behind the velvety red curtains of the cinema booths, the viewer found an eclectic collection of short dance films.

The main festival screenings presented a diverse selection of documentaries. The films documented mature dance company Three Score’s performance at Brighton Rail Station; an exchange of dance between children in Hackney and New Orleans; a moving tale between a Mexican and a Taiwanese dancer; and the dedication and devotion of three prominent Hip Hop dancers. While the emphasis was still on dance, the documentaries provided a revealing insight into the lives and struggles of the artists.

The following three programmes proved to be an extremely vibrant mix of dance films. While some films experimented purely with the relationship between movement and camera, others, like Antoine Marc & Drew Cox’s Descent and Shireen Talhouni & Ali Al-Saadi’s Sarmad, provided moments of stunning visual beauty. Other dance films dealt honestly with issues of womanhood, disability, sexual empowerment, control and cultural tradition. Overall, a hugely exciting and international mixture of dance films.

The festival day closed with commissioned dance works from innovative London based Protocol Dance Company, and unique video and animation team Garrett and Garrett Videography. Lastly, an on-the-day collaboration and screening of work by Mina Aidoo and Brian Gillespie revealed just how accessible dance film can be.

As well as making screendance highly accessible to viewers, Dance Film Festival UK fosters curiosity and inquisitiveness. The festival truly is an invaluable platform to inspire, engage and most importantly, excite artists about dance film.