Hot House – Richard Chappell Dance at Oxford Playhouse, Dancin’ Oxford Spring Festival, 4th March 2024 – Maggie Watson reviews

Richard Chappell’s Hot House uses every shade of red to convey the idea of heat. At first the empty stage is dark. An illuminated exit sign upstage right, and a pinpoint of light that might be coming through a keyhole, suggest a commercial or civic setting. Then light slowly suffuses the space, as if clearing away mist, to reveal solo violinist Enyuan Khong and a single dancer. We might be in a night club, or an abandoned warehouse – we just don’t know – as dancers gradually join in, until there are five of them that seem simultaneously to represent the flames of a fire and the participants in a rave. All dressed in red costumes that are individually styled, they dance silently with fluidity and control, accompanied by Khong’s live performance, and backed by recorded ‘electronica’. Their movement is strong and gracefully gymnastic as they circle the stage and each other, turning and spinning like planets. The choreography is relatively ungendered, but the women also arch and stretch in supple backbends and, ‘walk-overs’, and one raises her leg above her head in a backward arc, like a figure skater.

The central section of Hot House feels like a party, the five dancers working in vigorous rhythmic unison, as if warmed by overhead orange discs or the radiant heat from electric bar heaters that seem to glow high above them. It was like watching the embers of a fire, where each coal is both a separate entity and part of the whole. At the end, the work returned to its beginning, with a single dancer and finally the violinist holding the stage until the blackout.

The dancers often seemed to sense each other’s presence without engaging eyes or emotion. They lifted, held and turned one another in perfect but detached synchrony, like people on a busy street expertly negotiating their physical surroundings while using a mobile phone to talk to someone possibly hundreds of miles away. The printed programme sheet (and it was great that this was available!) referred to the cost-of-living crisis, which has made warmth a commodity, political protest and celebration of community, but to me the dance spoke above all of the isolation of the individual in the crowd.

Maggie Watson

9th March 2024

You can find out more about Richard Chappell Dance here

 

Dancin’ Oxford performances at The North Wall, Amina Khayyam Dance Company and James Wilton Dance, 1st & 2nd March 2024 – Maggie Watson reviews

Last weekend, The North Wall marked the opening of Dancin’ Oxford’s Spring Festival with performances by Amina Khayyam Dance Company (AKDC) and James Wilton Dance.

AKDC is a Kathak-based company, and when the auditorium opened, musicians Debasish Mukherjee, Jonathan Mayer and Iain McHugh (on tabla, sitar and cello, respectively) were already in place beside the empty, blue-lit stage. Due to a last minute programme change, the show began with an improvisation session in which dancer Amina Khayyam and the musicians introduced some of the musical ideas and rhythms that we would hear again in the main piece. Khayyam, who trained in Kathak with Alpana Sengupta and Sushmita Ghosh, is a compelling dancer, and she has assembled an exceptionally accomplished group of performers.

Story of ONE, Story of MANY is a variation of AKDC’s production ONE, choreographed by Khayyam, who joined the musicians in parhant (the recitation of syllables) at the side of the stage. Three dancers, Abirami Eswar, Mohika Shankar and Jalpa Vala swirled their long dresses, spinning in beautiful swathes of movement, their bare feet beating the ground. Among the images of toil and loss (at one point a dancer seemed to give away her baby), there was also playfulness, when a dancer mimed a juggling game. The allusive nature of the work, somewhere between the abstract and the representational, left it full of uncertainty and ambiguity, perhaps triggering memories rather than telling a story.

The following evening, James Wilton and Sarah Jane Taylor’s LORE offered a terrific theatrical experience in which their gymnastic leaps, lifts and turns and subtle use of lighting created the illusion of many armed monsters and giants in shocking silhouettes. We saw a hideous straw-headed beast, horned creatures and a man turned into a tree. Inspired by pagan mythology this was not cosy folklore but a horrifying account of metamorphosis and terror. Michael Wojtas’ music added to the sense of mystery and oneness with nature by incorporating sounds of the natural world (sea, wind, birdsong, and crackling fire). The minimalist set, designed by Wilton, used vertical poles, resembling tall stalactites or the bare skeletons of trees, interspersed with round flat discs, like stepping stones. There was so much content in this densely packed dance work that at times I felt lost, searching for narrative in what seemed to be excerpts of unfamiliar stories, but the dramatic impact of such a committed and highly professional performance was breathtaking.

Maggie Watson

3rd March 2024

Find out more about Amina Khayyam Dance Company here

Find out more about James Wilton Dance here

And check out further Dancin’ Oxford events here