DANCE | Previews 98 THE LIST 16 Oct–13 Nov 2014
CONTEMPORARY DANCE GRUPO CORPO Edinburgh Festival Theatre, Tue 4 & Wed 5 Nov
The quest for perfect unison is a challenge for most dance companies, and the bigger you are, the harder it gets. For Brazil’s Grupo Corpo, synchronised movement is a way of life and, watching the 22 dancers move, it feels as if they’re all sharing the same breath. But such precision doesn’t come easily. ‘It’s hard work,’ says Carmen Purri, a dancer with
the company for 23 years, now rehearsal director. ‘The dancers start with a ballet class each day before rehearsals, and when we’re on tour I watch the show to see if there’s a finger out of place – then we’ll have an hour of corrections the next day to fix those details.’
‘It’s so important to be precise, because it’s not
classical ballet where the movements are very marked – this is more fluid. So if it’s not very well rehearsed, it shows.’
Last seen in Scotland performing their five-star show at the 2010 Edinburgh International Festival, Grupo Corpo are back with two more captivating works choreographed by artistic director Rodrigo Pederneiras.
Inspired by Brazilian rural traditions, Parabelo mixes stillness and a carnival exuberance, while Sem Mim references a Portuguese song cycle about the sea. Both benefit from the unique qualities of a Grupo Corpo dancer.
‘Brazilian people have dance in their blood, and each dancer in our company comes with their own dance inside them,’ says Purri. ‘ It’s hard to explain – and not all Brazilian dancers have it, but when we choose dancers at auditions, besides the classical technique, that’s what we’re looking for.’ (Kelly Apter)
DANCE THEATRE DANCE DERBY macrobert, Stirling, Wed 22 Oct then touring
Lack of sleep, physical exhaustion, blisters, the ever-present risk of public humiliation – today they’re the consequences of a drunken night on the town. But in 1930s America, it was a very different kind of dance floor that brought about such things. Demonstrating the physical and mental torture endured by dance marathon competitors,
Dance Derby is a fascinating insight into how a financial depression drives people to desperate measures. ‘Dance marathons started out as competitions for people to win money,’ explains choreographer Kally Lloyd-Jones, ‘and one of the reasons people entered them is it gave them a roof over their heads and they got fed. But the competitions got more and more brutal over time.’
Working closely with the dancers, Lloyd-Jones came up with a number of three dimensional characters to populate the show: the young man and his heavily pregnant wife, the older couple, the competitive, media-savvy duo to name but three. Accompanied by a live jazz band and singer, the dancers gradually deteriorate from energetic to barely functioning.
‘Everybody worked on their own relationships and backgrounds,’ says Lloyd-Jones of the rehearsal process. ‘We had a giant map of the United States and decided where people came from and why they were competing. We also did lots of research, looking at images and films of the real people, and talked about how you might feel after dancing for a day, a week, six weeks. It was amazing – the dancers just became those people.’ (Kelly Apter)
CONTEMPORARY DANCE DAVID HUGHES DANCE Brunton Theatre, Musselburgh, Fri 7 Nov and touring
David Hughes has just done some quick arithmetic, and figured out that when he and fellow- dancer Gwen Berwick take to the stage to perform Lucy Guerin’s Soft Centre, ‘between us, we’re nearly 90 years old’. Although Hughes says this with a laugh, there’s nothing frivolous about his realisation. Both
47-year-old Hughes and 41-year-old Berwick bring an emotional maturity to the duet, which is exactly what Guerin had in mind when she created it in 1999. Back then, she choreographed it for ballet legend turned contemporary dancer, Mikhail Baryshnikov, who was 51 at the time.
‘Baryshnikov is one of my heroes,’ says Hughes, ‘and I get to dance one of his roles, which has never been danced by anybody else.’ While the role undoubtedly comes with the pressure of pedigree, as Hughes says with another chuckle, ‘I’ll give him a run for his money’.
From Matthew Bourne to Christopher Bruce, Hughes has a special place in the heart of many
choreographers, and he quite rightly asserts, ‘I’m not ready to put out to pasture yet.’
Guerin’s Soft Centre is one of three works David Hughes Dance will take on tour this autumn, with Rafael Bonachela’s 4:Freeze-Frame and a brand new piece for seven dancers by Hughes himself. Three Souls was inspired by the music of German composer Moritz Eggert. ‘The music pretty much dictated the piece,’ says Hughes, ‘And there’s something in that music about abandonment. It’s a very lyrical piece and the dancers look wonderful.’ (Kelly Apter)