LIST.CO.UK/FESTIVAL PREVIEWS & REVIEWS FESTIVAL DANCE
THE COUNCIL OF THE ORDINARY B-Boying takes a turn towards the dark side ●●●●● BATSHEVA DANCE COMPANY: HORA Learning the new language of dance
It’s beat battles and break moves but not as you know them, in this triple bill from breakdancing troupe Bad Taste Cru. As well as flipping them- selves into spins, the Cru, originally from Northern Ireland, also demonstrate the dance’s potential to explore darker subject matter.
Their first piece, Aftermath, was choreographed as a response to growing up in the shadow of terrorist threats. There is certainly an undertone of confronta- tion that resonates through their duets. Later they lie in square spotlights, picked out, one by one, flinch- ing in contortions of pain.
In The Mirror, dancer Rokas Salteris stalks his
looking-glass counterpart Robby Graham in a game of follow the leader. When they propel away from each other, a balletic poise flows through their movements, and the dance, though maintaining a threatening edge, also has a surprisingly graceful touch. Tribal Assembly sees a four-way battle between a
homeless person, a tracksuited heavy, a business- man and a punk. The flashiest breaking may come out of this one, but so too do the piece’s tenderest moments of support. (Lucy Ribchester) ■ Zoo Southside, 662 6892, until 27 Aug, 2.40pm, £12 (£10).
For most of us, the word ‘gaga’ means one of two things: an anthemic, hands-in-the-air Queen song, or a peroxide blonde dressed in meat. At Batsheva Dance Company in Tel Aviv, how-
ever, it has a whole other meaning. The brainchild of Israeli artistic director, Ohad Naharin, gaga is a new movement style developed to help his dancers reach their potential. Which, if the company’s 2008 Festival show Deca Dance is anything to go by, is working out just fine. ‘Gaga is a toolbox,’ explains Naharin. ‘And when
we use it, it allows us to develop speed and effi- ciency of movement. It’s also about texture and delicacy, and listening to our bodies so we discover when one body part moves, it echoes in the rest of you.’
Despite the use of music widely known from sci-
ence fiction film soundtracks, Hora is a piece of pure abstract dance, and Naharin wants us to keep an open mind. ‘Hora has abundant reference points,’ he says, ‘but I ask the audience not to let those ref- erences manage them, or prevent them from having a real, fresh experience.’ (Kelly Apter) ■ Edinburgh Playhouse, 473 2000, 30 Aug–1 Sep, 7.30pm, £10–£30.
N O G A D
I D A G
(REMOR) Potent micro-theatre probes a couple’s break up ●●●●●
The most potent things always come in the smallest doses: shots of espresso, measures of vodka, and in this case an 11-minute piece of dance that cuts to the core of a couple’s broken relationship. Even the wooden box that performers Marta Barceló and Joan Miquel Artigues move in feels bru- tally intense, a reconstruction of the original prison cell in Mallorca where the piece, from company Res de Res, premiered. In the spirit of the new-wave micro-theatre being developed in Spain in response to the financial crisis, audiences of 15 are taken in to perch on tiny stools, shine lights on the performance using torches, and feel the weight of sadness and the force of desperation piping off the couple as they fall in and out of a duet, each in their separate worlds, chasing a memory of the other.
(remor) is subtitled ‘the soul’s prison’, and although it may be a metaphorical prison, the bleakness is painfully vivid; in the dank chalky walls, the corroding sink and the bunk beds that provide a stage for Barceló and Artigues to crawl, claw and fling their way around.
Their physical magnetism pulls you into this piece and doesn’t let go throughout, from the open- ing scene where she knocks back pills while he reads a letter, to the aching central dance, framed by Joana Gomila’s soulful, cello-driven score. Oblivious, he pins her backwards against the wall then moves so she slides numbly down; she arches her back while he slips between her legs like a thought falling away. It all feels deeply sad and beautifully articulate. Through dance, Res de Res has found a language
to express the complex feelings of confusion and loss that come when relationships break down, one that is far more potent than words. (Lucy Ribchester) ■ C Nova, 0845 260 1234, until 27 Aug, 4pm, 4.20pm, 4.40pm, 5pm, 5.20pm, 8pm, 8.20pm, 8.40pm, 9pm, 9.20pm, £2.50–£4.50 (£1.50–£3.50).
LEIGH WARREN + DANCERS All for one, and one for all
In some dance companies you have soloists and principals, in others everybody is on the same level. But rarely are company members described as ‘a group of individual dance artists’, as they are on the Leigh Warren website. When he started his company 20 years ago, the Australian choreographer made a conscious deci- sion to publicly credit his dancers for their contribu- tion. ‘Being a choreographer is a bit like being a magician,’ says Warren. ‘The dancers are the rab- bits that come out of the hat, and without them, I don’t exist. They’re the assets of the company, and I want to ensure the dancers feel they are a valuable and valued part of this endeavour.’
Warren and his dancers are bringing two works to this year’s Edinburgh International Festival, Breathe and Impulse, both of which feature musicians per- forming on stage next to the dancers. ‘Music can often be like wallpaper,’ says Warren, ‘just in the background of what’s happening. But what I do is bring the music into the landscape.’ (Kelly Apter) ■ Edinburgh Festival Theatre, 473 2000, Sat 25 Aug, 7.30pm; Sun 26 Aug, 2.30pm, £12–£30.
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