Over the past 7 days I have seen over 10 pieces of dance, performance and staged spectacle. This is my outlet for sharing some of the ubertasticness of these physical offerings.
It all started quite beautifully with the exquisitely economical Jane Mason who performed her new work Singer, a 30 minute ode to all the things interesting to her like ambiguity, weight, light, song and construction. A refreshingly simple presentation yet rich with emotion and connections, it left room for the audience to absorb and process the environments that Jane presented. She also presented her awarding film Andout with some wonderful soundscape by Jules Maxwell.
It was then ramped up in scale to a complete polar opposite. The four story temporary glass fronted Electric Hotel was constructed outside in Bournemouth and the audience witnessed and heard (through a delightfully composed soundtrack played to the audience individually over pairs of headphones) a mysterious incident, which shall remained unnamed. Twas an adventure in repetition, with slight glitches in the movement presented again and again, filmic in its construction and how the audience could follow multiple narratives of the hotel residents over and over and over again.
Next stop was the launch of a new dance space, South East Dance Studios, in Kent with 7 different pieces for the audience to watch and take part in. The delightful Mayakaras (a Kent based youth dance group under the watchful eye of Lila Dance) entranced the audience with a performance full of attack and authenticity missing in many “professional” works. Tony Adigun created (with students from Hextable School) a processional site specific work moving the audience in and out of corridors, studios, shower rooms and foyers, Billy Cowie's 3D film Tango de Soledad and Rosemary Butcher kicked the night off with architecture/roof/aerial dance framed by a slowly fading dusk light with some luminescent wings. Swanley have never had it so good.
Finally a brutal and ferocious presentation of a new work by La La La Human Steps, choreographed by the ever pioneering Edouard Lock from Montreal. Ballet like you have never seen. Timed to the nano second, met with precision on both the musicality and physicality, the dancers ooze panache yet create exquisite shapes with such swiftness, you begin to question whether they are indeed human. A relentless 90 mins, with no break, a new score by Gavin Bryars and some of the finest lighting design, dancing and choreography you’re likely to see.
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