Dream On
Cloud Dance Festival @ the Chisenhale Dance Space, London
26 - 28 September 2008
Reviewed by: Mary Kate Connolly
There is something about the jaunty cosiness of the Chisenhale Dance Space which seemed to suit the Cloud Dance Festival just perfectly. Something perhaps in the warmth of the careworn, mismatched furniture which bedecks the lobby…and equally in the sleek simplicity of the studio theatre, complete with exposed factory-brick wall.
For its latest quarterly offering, Cloud Dance Festival took up
residence at Chisenhale to present Dream On, a three night showcase of
contemporary dance. An offshoot of the dance company Cloud Dance, the
festival emerged in 2007 in response to what it saw as a shortage of
regular contemporary dance platforms. Artists for the festival are
selected purely on the merit of their work and whilst there is no
monetary remuneration for performance, they are afforded the tools
vital to all performers, emergent or otherwise; a platform for their
work and the opportunity to network with their peers, alongside
photographs and the odd review.
There were 23 performances in Dream On, spread out over the course of
the weekend. I attended Sunday night’s programme which in its diversity
and innovation, seemed most in keeping with the ethos of the festival.
The ardent drive characteristic of new work was certainly in evidence,
as too at times was the inherent rawness and recourse to cliché,
although happily the former in far greater volumes that the latter.
The billing opened with Petite Grandeur, choreographed and performed by
Mikkel Svak. Whilst Svak’s initial sequences were grounded in a
balletic tradition, seen in the precision and turnout of his feet,
gradually a more abstract and off-kilter aesthetic began pleasingly, to
inhabit his movement. A tempered imbalance in much of the choreography
tinged Svak’s performance with urgency or desperation –an evocation of
a caged animal or soul. Whilst little else was needed in the way of
drama in this work, the pathos of the movement would have been aided
greatly by a deeper choreographic interaction with the score. The music
(unlisted in the programme) seemed banal in comparison with the
emotional delivery and it would have been interesting to watch Svak
command it, rather than follow it.
Piece by Piece company’s How far are you willing to go? began with a
very different soundscape – that of a news bulletin describing the
potential fatal side effects of Botox injections. Thus began a
terrifying foray into the obsessive nature of female beauty regimes
which saw six performers deconstruct from self-possessed attractive
individuals, to hollow shells of neuroses, eventually carrying out one
of the group with the grim ceremony of pallbearers in funeral
procession. The opening sequence of wordplay, shouting ‘Cumberland’ and
‘Frankfurter’ whilst fighting over a tube of face cream felt a little
clichéd but was followed by some witty choreography which bopped along
to a disco beat. The girls pouted and paraded, whirling into tummy
crunches and pawing rhythmically at any ounce of errant fat to be
found. One could argue that this work didn’t break new ground
thematically, yet despite female beauty being a much explored topic,
there was still something freshly disturbing in this work, especially
given the youth and physicality of its performers.
Continuing in the vein of the sinister was Finale by Ticket Theatre
Dance, a witty exploration of the pitfalls of performance and the agony
behind the greasepaint, of so many dancers. Dressed in outrageous
eighties-style gold spandex leggings, tracksuit tops and headbands, the
dancers formed a motley collective of jaded and desperate glamour. The
piece opened with performers taking melodramatic and unashamedly
self-indulgent bows, before embarking on a relentless parody which aped
ballet, burlesque, jazz and anything else you fancy in the line of
showbiz. This trajectory was punctuated only occasionally, by
revelations of the gritty reality behind the spangled façade – dancers
communicated this in the slippage of a fixed smile, or in extreme
cases, by dropping exhausted to the floor. It is enlivening to see
performers poke good natured fun and indeed make biting comment about
the world which has created them. It would have been nice however to
see this piece delve a little further into its subject matter and
perhaps find a more honed subtlety amid the caper.
Rokit Dance explored the brimming of contained tension and expulsive
release in Breathe. Opening the work in a taut, intertwined coil, the
dancers soon erupted across the space, filling it with dynamic driven
choreography before reforming into a seething, woven cluster. This work
was simple in concept and all the more successful for this reason.
Relying on the strength of the choreography, and aided only by simple
snakeskin wrap-around dresses in a nod to the animalistic, and a hugely
appropriate musical choice, the clubbing hit ‘Release the Pressure’,
Breathe did exactly what it set out to do in creating a vibrant
representation of the vital energy in inhalation, exhalation and the
motor of the human body.
Inspired by the poetry of I. Cutler, ranciddance presented a work in
progress, Ode to the kitchen sink, choreographed by Anthony Mills.
Lights rose on a couple, intertwined and rolling slowly downstage.
Gradually through dreamy counterbalanced movements, the dancers got to
their feet, leaning against one another, interchanging weight and
space. Without warning, this romance and languor was then replaced by a
jerky playfulness and cheeky isolations of each other’s body parts. A
sensual pairing had transformed into a comedic and affectionate duo who
tweaked each other’s noses and tried to trip one another up. For a work
which gave little away in its programme notes and is also evidently
still in the process of creation, Ode to the kitchen sink, in fact
proved one of the most insightful of the evening’s offerings. Veering
away from the melodramatic, Ode succeeded in warmly communicating the
multifaceted nature of relationships and love.
In contrast, melodrama was very much at the heart of the Romantic
Revolutionaries’ Songs of Sorrow. An actor, a ballerina and a
Pierrot-style mime character came together in this work to search,
according to the artists, for ‘the space between movement and dance’.
Visually, this piece was immediately intriguing, even if predictable in
the ballerina’s tutu and the Pierrot’s forlorn, white painted face.
From this alluring beginning however, Songs of Sorrow failed to
develop. In an attempt to facilitate new discoveries amid such
institutional performance modes, the work became shackled to and
eventually overpowered by, the iconic catalogue of ballet and opera
scores, and the rich history of ballet and mime which rendered the
performers poor imitators in comparison.
Spiltmilk Dance looked to the revolutionary Andy Warhol for inspiration
in Snake, a dance which forms part of their series ‘5 Dances’, each
linked in some way, to the life and works, of Warhol. Snake drew upon
Warhol’s notion of the use of repetition on an absurd scale. For
Spiltmilk, this translated into a vision of six girls dressed
identically in monochrome black and white, executing a movement
sequence in endless loop. In conception, this work ran the risk of
appearing trite and boring – in realisation however, it avoided such
pitfalls nicely. The precision of the dancers, along with the dynamism
of the choreography ensured that audience attention was held. In
addition, a marked lack of dramatisation ruled, which felt very much in
keeping with the nonchalance of Warhol.
Tag Along by Tempered Body Dance Company presented in essence, a ‘love
affair guided by sensuality… and a passionate need for destruction’.
This work saw a man clad solely in sleek evening suit trousers, and a
woman in slinky black slip, enact a furious and taut duet. Despite
their impassioned clawings, the jazzy accompanying music which taunted
with the lyrics ‘he needs me’ and the physical power struggles built
into the choreography conveyed the selfishness of this hollow coupling.
Sadly the work felt a little short, and could doubtlessly plumb more
depths given the skill of the dancers, and craft of some of the swifter
sequences.
Finally came Rush by Pair Dance, a turbulent, eruptive piece for three
female dancers. At its opening, a lone dancer twitched and jerked,
jutted out ribs and hips, surged and recoiled. With sublime technique
she expended her seemingly wound up energy in sudden bursts and
attacks, followed by rebound and poise. Presently, the other two
dancers followed with frustrated grunts, looks of displeasure and
fevered movements such as running on the spot. As the piece developed,
a voiceover of garbled speech ‘can I get out people?.....germs…stuffy’
cloaked the movements with contextual explanation. Suddenly the
dancers’ disgust and confined labours took on the realism of a packed
tube at rush hour, which added a clever layer to the piece. It also, in
its evocation of commuter chaos, proved a fitting end to the festival
that Autumnal Sunday evening, reminding all in the cosy Chisenhale
studio that the weekend had drawn to a close, and Monday beckoned....
Writer detail:
Mary Kate Connolly is a freelance writer and movement practitioner based in London
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Venue detail:
Cloud Dance Festival @ the Chisenhale Dance Space
www.cloud-dance-festival.org.uk