‘Overall unfathomable’ A UK premiere inaugurates the Barbican’s autumn/winter Theatre & Dance season with a co-commission from Pam Tanowitz Dance. Having toured New York and Luxembourg, the piece marks a unique conjoining of choreographer Pam Tanowitz (the company’s founder), Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Caroline Shaw and visual artist Sarah Crowner. The best way I have found to understand the piece (having ...
‘Interesting undulations’ Aaron S. Watkin, English National Ballet’s artistic director, rather loosely bunches together three disparate works under the banner of rhythm. He might have tried equally vague themes such as bodies or light, yet the varied undulation is interesting. Midway through (two intervals – eyes roll into my frontal lobe) is Micaela Taylor’s Bow Out, and every dancer earns ...
‘Playfully morphing between modes’ I thankfully have no children but have observed my friends that do, say that their changeable little goblins are difficult to entertain and appease. With war, sex and the stock market easily accessible through those magic mirrors we keep giving them, how does one engage such overstimulated offspring? Circus is a common answer, but suppose you ...
“Alternatives to the gruff and bluff of traditional masculinity” I was 7 in 2001 when Michael Nunn (now OBE) and William Trevitt (OBE) astounded the ballet world with their gamble-show Pointless at The Camden Roundhouse. That’s less of a flex and more of a statement on the legacy of these fellows, almost a whole lifetime of work, rightly celebrated. After ...
‘Switching things up proves to surprise’ I have been a Breakin’ Convention (BC) stan for over five years now. A fraction, considering that London’s premiere hip-hop festival in London’s premier dance venue is celebrating its 22nd year. Never have I been on the Friday; however, switching things up proves to surprise, and not completely in the best way. Over Saturday ...
“Talented, if slightly drunk seeming dancers” I braved torrential rain, compounded by a particularly violent and semi-hallucinogenic cold, plus a last-minute venue change, all to eventually arrive at Sadler’s Wells East for a thoroughly perplexing evening. Hours before, the owner of The Peacock’s building, LSE, informed the renters (Sadler’s Wells) that “unavoidable building works” (we wonder weather-related?) required the theatre ...
‘Who? What? When? Why?’ Voilà! Festival ships over a tale of sisterhood, sacrifice and gentrification, in the shifting patter of Greek from Athens to London. The social drama should translate fairly easily, considering the common ground and universal themes. Konstantinos Avramis and his theatre company Dispositif. are a nomadic, experimental outfit, mixing physical and ritualistic theatre to deliver a political ...
‘A bubbling smoothie of the weird, the wacky, and the wonderful’ “And it was all a dream” is a universally acknowledged cop-out ending, yet that doesn’t deter Hollywood from trotting it out again and again. Conversely, choreographers regularly view somnambulation as carte blanche-an opportunity to break free of the already largely ignored narrative rigidity and let their freak flag fly. ...
‘We feel a little left out as spectators’ Dam Van Huynh’s Van Huynh Company dominates The Place, following on from their 2023 piece Re:birth. Exquisite Noise is an exploration of rebellion and sound, the question is: does the noise make sense? I think of my experience of this show as pre-blurb and post-blurb. Let’s start, contrary-wise, with my understanding after ...
‘gothic gladiators’ Acrobatics, I would argue, are truly universal. Especially for families: dazzling feats for the kiddywinks, and enough risk and flesh to keep the adults awake. The heady mix of possible death or disfigurement and the twisted, lithe bodies keeps audiences of all ages coming back. Once trapped in the big top (easy, tiger), the circus folk have leapt ...