Dotdotdot Dance present Blue Ghost, Cornerstone Arts Centre, Didcot, 24th March 2023 – Maggie Watson reviews

Blue Ghost, performed by Flamenco dance company Dotdotdot, is captivating from beginning to end. At first the, stage is in darkness, then flares suddenly crackle and spark from its outermost corners, as dancers Magdalena Mannion and Noemi Luz gradually emerge from the gloaming, and the gathering light reveals composer and visual artist Nick Rothwell standing upstage centre at his music console, from which he creates a sensational soundscape that combines original Flamenco compositions and cantos with electronic music.

At times, rectangles of light projected on the wall at the back of the stage pierce the darkness, like illuminated windows drawing the dancers towards them, or the dancers themselves glow with LEDs embedded in their costumes as they vibrate, twist, and whirl with lightning footwork and stylised hand gestures. Towards the end, a beautiful image of a network of lights, like a pattern of glow-worms, appears behind the dancers.

There is a hint of display and courtship as if they are birds or insects, taking it in turns to show themselves to each other: one dancer wears a long dress and performs a spectacular shawl dance; the other wears high-waist trousers with a jerkin and transparent cloak suggestive of gossamer wings. Their fiercely accurate Flamenco taps are like a rhythmic conversation, both with each other and with the music, as they move faster and faster, their bodies strongly held and tightly centred, building suspense by containing their energy before the moments of release. They seemed to be ephemeral creatures, rather than human beings, that danced purely for the sake of dancing.

There was no programme available at the venue (not even a QR code), but afterwards I discovered that the work was inspired by the Blue Ghost Firefly.

Maggie Watson
26 March 2023

For more information about Dotdotdot Dance’s Blue Ghost, see programme here

 

Born to Exist: the Women I Know, by Joseph Toonga; Just Us Dance Theatre, Cornerstone, Didcot, 12th March 2023 – Maggie Watson reviews

Born to Exist is the third part of Joseph Toonga’s Hip Hop Dance Trilogy. It opens with a dancer standing, legs astride, centre stage, her back to the audience. Slowly, she starts to move, gradually expanding and extending with every part of her body, her torso undulating, her hips circling. Two more women join her and together they perform a tightly choreographed dance work to a score by ‘Mikey J’ Asante.

Toonga has drawn on street dance styles, to develop a theatrical performance technique and vocabulary. The dancers displayed accuracy, precision and sharp focus in carefully structured sequences, full of choreographic content, which called to mind urban violence and scenes of racial conflict. They moved in synch with one another, despite their markedly different heights and physiques, subtly taking cues from the sound of each others’ breath and footfall, as well as from the soundtrack.

This is not an easy work to watch: the dancers speak, one delivering a long and weary monologue in Portuguese that seemed to be about how terribly tired she is and how difficult it is to be a black woman; another dancer angrily demanded, over and over, ‘See me; why can’t you see me?’, before looking members of the audience in the eye and telling them to ‘F*** off’. Nobody answered back, and nobody walked out, but at that moment, I felt that anything might happen.

I was disappointed that there was no accompanying programme available for the performance; not even a QR code to link to information about the production. I had to search the Web to find the names of the three accomplished and talented dancers: Aisha Webber, Amanda de Souza, and Paris Crossley.

Maggie Watson
12 March 2023

Find out more about Joseph Toonga and Just Us Dance Theatre here

 

The Four Seasons, JamesWiltonDance, The North Wall, 10th March 2023 – Maggie Watson reviews

On Friday evening as part of an intensive Dancin’ Oxford week of events, JamesWiltonDance presented The Four Seasons before a packed auditorium, preceded by a lively ‘curtain raiser’ by a dozen local students who had attended a company workshop. Choreographers and performers James Wilton and Sarah Jane Taylor have created a truly immersive dance work, with designs by Vibeke Andersen, to Vivaldi’s music as recomposed by Max Richter with extensions by Michal Wojtas. The entire audience seemed to hold its breath from the first moment, as Taylor slowly emerged like an amoeba from a chrysalis, while the light gently glowed and dimmed, suggesting the passing of day and night.

Taylor and Wilton seemed to move in perfect unison, using every part of their bodies to support themselves, creating the illusion that they were drifting in space. Embracing, carrying, catching, and holding each other, they sometimes seemed to swim in the air, opening up to the warmth of the sun. Their arms were like slowly beating wings when they carried one another, back-to-back, and the mysterious globe that descended from above like the moon seemed to draw them as if they were the tides of the sea. They danced alongside the score rather than slavishly following it, yet when they stood vertically, close together, there was an almost Baroque formality that echoed colours in the music. The choreography carried ideas that it is impossible fully to capture in words, reminding us of the overwhelming extent of the cosmos, and our tiny part in it.

Maggie Watson
11th March 2023

 

Unknown Realms, ACE Dance and Music, The Mill Arts Centre, Banbury, 8th March 2023 – Maggie Watson reviews

On Wednesday night, ACE Dance and Music presented a two-part programme of original work; TNBT – The Night Before Tomorrow by Serge Aimé Coulibaly, and Mana – The Power Within, by Vincent Mantsoe and Gail Parmel. In TNBT artificial grass, benches and a table, alongside the seven dancers (five women and two men) dressed in casual hot-weather street clothes, suggested an outdoor scene. The company burst across the stage to Yvan Talbot’s score with a blistering energy; leaping, spinning, falling, they seemed driven by a furious rage against each other and against the audience. Their ferocity felt like an assault as they vented their anger, silently mouthing words that we could not hear, challenging each other, yet strangely dissociated from one another, pursuing their own trajectories as they moved between different formations, brief duets and solos. There was a passing feeling of more intimate connection between the guest performers Thabang Motaung and Mthoko Mkhwanazi, who introduced a sense of wit in a dance in which they interacted moving with fluidity and precision, but the overall impression was one of isolation. When Mirabel Huang-Smith danced on the table, although she was surrounded by the company, strobe lighting seemed to capture her movement in a series of stills, as if she was being observed by outsiders.

 

FIREDANCE REIGNITE 2023, Karen Hauer and Gorka Marquez, New Theatre Oxford, 5th March 2023 – Susie Crow reviews

Karen Hauer and Gorka Marquez, much admired and loved Strictly Come Dancing professional dancers, are the latest to bring a Strictly spin-off commercial dance show to Oxford. Produced and directed by Stuart Glover, with nimble choreography by Nathan Clarke, FIREDANCE REIGNITE 2023 is an updated version of an already successful show which combines sizzling dancing with spectacular fire performance. Crashing percussion and sudden flares, dancers in rippling silk skirts swirling and shooting upwards like flames in the darkness, heralded an action-packed show. A simple narrative of two dancers from rival houses meeting at the Festival of Fire and forging a passionate connection provides a minimal excuse for a succession of dances which combine a range of latin styles and lyrical barefoot contemporary, set to a playlist of great and familiar songs. A small ensemble of dancers including two expert fire performers switched and recombined and changed costumes to bring variety and visual drama to a simple black stage setting.

 

Varsity Dance Competition. St John’s College Oxford Auditorium, 12th February 2023 – Maggie Watson reports

Hilary (or ‘Lent’) Term can be bleak with its freezing weather and public examinations, so the 7th Annual Varsity Dance Competition on Sunday, at the start of Oxford’s Fifth Week, was a high spot of energy and warmth. This year, Oxford University Contemporary Dance (OUCD) was host to Cambridge University Dance Competition Team (CUDCT) for the event in St John’s College Auditorium, which buzzed with chatter as friends, families and dance fans crammed in. There were tantalising glimpses of competitors, with hair ready dressed and costumes concealed by their team tracksuits, and the audience was bursting with excitement by the time the Presenter, Leah Aspden, took the stage to open the match.

Varsity Dance pits each troupe against the other in seven categories: Tap; Jazz; Solo/Duet/Trio; Contemporary; Street; Ballet, and ‘Wildcard’. The winner must take at least four of them, and both teams were clearly ‘in it to win it’. Supporters cheered them on, whooping at virtuosic feats and applauding wildly after each dance. The judges sat alone and slightly apart from the tumultuously enthusiastic audience in their reserved row of seats, and without knowing which team was which, used clear scoring criteria to award marks for choreography, technique, performance and execution.

 

Coppélia, Varna International Ballet, New Theatre, Oxford. Monday 30 January 2023 – Maggie Watson reviews

The Varna International Ballet dancers are youthful, energetic and engaging. On Monday, they danced Coppélia, one of the three great nineteenth century ballets that they brought on a three-day touring visit to Oxford (the others being Giselle and The Nutcracker; they are also presenting Swan Lake at some venues). This is a very hard working company and orchestra delivering performances to a terribly demanding schedule: they were in Darlington the previous week, and opened in Ipswich immediately after Oxford, in a tour that takes in 23 theatres in about ten weeks.

Monday evening’s show was an opportunity to see a version of Coppélia with choreography credited to Alexander Gorsky and Gergana Karaivanova that is markedly different from the more familiar English productions. Gone were most of the mime sequences, the traditional national dances and some of the corps de ballet set pieces. Other changes included the introduction of a tricky pointe solo for the dancer playing the doll, and the substitution of a more visibly virtuosic repertoire for the variations in the third act; there were a great many fouetté turns! These choices distanced the ballet from its origins at the end of the French romantic era, and gave it a very different flavour.

I did not feel that the production was true to the style of the original ballet, but it was bright and cheerful, fully costumed (the women in gauzy romantic tutu skirts lit with bright colours), and staged with a projected background, but otherwise a full set. The illustrated programme included an article about the composer Léo Delibes by Philip Ashworth, and brief biographies with photographs of the soloists, who had trained in a range of schools and styles. It is unsurprising, given the rigours of touring, that overall the quality of the dancing was somewhat variable, but there was lovely upper body movement to be seen in some of the corps de ballet dancers’ ports de bras, and the best of the soloists delivered buoyant grand allegro, strong pointe work and dynamic pirouettes.

The company played to a good house and the enthusiastic applause demonstrated that, post-pandemic, there is an audience eager for full-length classical ballets in Oxford.

Maggie Watson

5th February 2023

 

Moving With the Times: First Look (Dancin’ Oxford Spring Festival), Pegasus Theatre, 20th January 2023 – Maggie Watson reports

First Look was a chance to see the work in progress on four dances by artists awarded 2023 Moving with the Times commissions. Presented in the welcoming environment of Pegasus, the programme consisted of three solos and a duet. An onstage discussion, curated by Thomas Page, followed each work, enabling the performers to seek responses from the audience.

All four works explored what it is to be an outsider, who does not conform to society’s norms, whether through disability, gender, social class, sexuality, culture or ethnicity. Intriguingly, all the performances used words as well as dance to establish context and convey meaning, through songs, poems or pre-recorded monologues, and by the dancers themselves speaking on stage.

Audience feedback was sometimes practical: for example, discussions about whether Divija Melally’s piece could end with the dancer on or off stage, or the way in which dancer Lucy Clark shared the stage space with musician Philip Kinshuck. The performances also provoked more subjective reactions, including intensely emotional responses to the exploration of transgender experience by dancers Trayvaughn Robin and Tonye Scott-Obene in CTC Dance Company’s work, and a vote by show of hands on whether or not the audience liked or disliked the type of character portrayed by Vita Peach in her comic creation, HUGO.

Viewing the four works at this stage shed light on the artists’ different creative approaches. Vita Peach, directed by Tamsin Heatley, offered a brief but polished and sophisticated excerpt from her solo work, while CTC Dance gave several short developing extracts from what will be a longer narrative dance for two dancers. Lucy Clark and the interdisciplinary ‘fuse collective’ presented a collaboration between dancer, musician and visual artists Daniela Zaharieva and Yi Ting Liong in which sound, lighting and movement seemed to hold equal value. In contrast, Divija Melally’s dance was a solo work, apparently devised and staged entirely by herself, that began to the sound of her own breath, and included a beautiful visual effect (which it would be ‘a spoiler’ to describe here!).

There was wit, humour and grace on show, as well as the rawness of pain as the dancers in their various ways embodied experiences of rejection or exclusion. They all had ample ideas and material to work with; perhaps more than it will be possible to incorporate within the finished works. When Dancin’ Oxford presents the final versions at Pegasus on 3rd and 4th March, it will be almost as interesting to discover what the artists have chosen to omit, as it will be to see what they have refined and developed.

Maggie Watson

21st January 2023

 

66 Dances: A series of fortunate events. Andy Solway reflects on process, production and performance, Littlemore Church, 2nd-3rd December 2022

Dance is for the young. That’s what the world says. Dance companies are full of young dancers with incredible physical skills, and choreographers are funded to make spectacular performances with their young companies. But this view is belied by the huge numbers of older people who dance into their thirties, forties, fifties and beyond. I have always loved to dance, but I often think that I’m not a ‘real’ dancer. I’ve never been in a big company, I only danced seriously for about 12 years, then I more or less gave up until my late 50s. I don’t talk about dancing to my work colleagues, or in my kayaking club. But still, at 66, dance remains a core part of who I am.

66 Dances began, like many things, during lockdown. My friend Steve Batts, who is director of Echo Echo Dance Theatre Company in Derry, put on November Dances, a series of 21 live streamed performances in November 2020. It was a great event, Every weekday night a community of people from all over the world gathered to watch for about 15 minutes. Each night Steve created a space in our imaginations where he could dance for himself and for us. This summer, I was involved in several dance workshops and projects that I enjoyed immensely. However, I was also feeling afraid. I have had several small ailments that were quite worrying at the time, and many friends have quite serious ongoing health problems. Would I be able to dance in a year’s time? In a week? 66 Dances arose out of these feelings. The idea was to make a two-day event in which I would perform my age in dance.

 

Clorinda Agonistes. Shobana Jeyasingh Dance, Oxford Playhouse, Tuesday 15 & Wednesday 16 November; introduced and discussed at DANSOX, Wednesday 9 November 2022 – Maggie Watson reviews

An informative and stimulating DANSOX event, hosted at St Hilda’s College on 9th November, heralded Shobana Jeyasingh’s new work, Clorinda Agonistes, which played to full houses at Oxford Playhouse last week.

Speaking at DANSOX, Jeyasingh described her work’s lengthy gestation period. The inspiration that she drew from hearing Claudio Monteverdi’s operatic scena Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda led her to research the story derived from Torquato Tasso’s epic poem Gerusalemme Liberata that lay behind it. Initially drawn by Monteverdi’s use of recitative, which Jeyasingh felt had an emotional effect similar to the vocalisation of syllables in classical Indian dance, she discovered a story that in spite of its late mediaeval orientalising tropes offers new resonance and meaning for audiences today.