Category Archives: Dance

Review – Companhia de Dança Deborah Colker at the Derngate, Northampton, 5th May

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I’d not seen this dance company before but had heard Very Good Things about them. And what a smashing bunch they are. Fantastic dancers, tight choreography, athletic performances, inventive staging. Particularly for me, after the interval, when they danced with mirrors. It’s impossible to describe, you have to see it for yourself; but the level of trust between the members of the company must be vast, you could see how just one foot wrong could put a whole sequence completely out.

It’s a simple idea, but not one I’ve seen before: dancing in front of a mirror, and when the dancer moves slightly to the side, a dancer behind the mirror continues their reflection. Fabulously effective.

Added to all this, dancing with knives!! They looked damn sharp too.

Pity this excellent show didn’t stop the guy in front checking the football results constantly on his Blackberry, or the two ladies further down the row continuing their conversation throughout the whole show (at top volume, obviously, otherwise they couldn’t have heard each other over the backing track); there was a grumpy woman to our side who was most put out at our request to sit in our own seats which she was obstructing; and the woman behind me who had draped her coat over the back of my seat – I gave her plenty of time to remove it while I took my coat off before sitting down but she chose to ignore it, so I plonked myself firmly against my back rest and creased it as much as I could. About five minutes later she seemed to notice and asked me to move so she could remove it.

Is it time for an acceptable audience behaviour code of conduct to be applied? Quick, please, before I turn into a Grumpy Old Man.

Review – Richard Alston Dance Company, Wednesday 24th March, Derngate, Northampton

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Seeing the Richard Alston Dance Company on their annual tour has become a regular treat for us. Over the years we have seen dance companies come and go, some have a brief spell of brilliance in the limelight and then fade, others plod away worthily but unremarkably trying to carve out a reputation in the world of performing arts. But Richard Alston’s company has remained one of the very few where you can always rely on a high standard of performance and choreography. I think only NDT2 from the Netherlands and Mark Morris from the US are comparable.

And, I’m delighted to say, that situation continues to apply. It was a terrifically entertaining programme, structured perfectly, (cheery start; complex middle bit; even cheerier conclusion) and delighting the smallish but appreciative audience. First up, we had “To Dance and Skylark” – the title comes from a ship’s captain’s order to his crew to take some exercise – and it’s a great opener; lively, bright, fluid of movement, engaging – all those elements you need to start the evening. Performed to a couple of the Brandenburg Concertos, so you’ve got that interesting mix of baroque and modern.

Middle section was “Light Flooding into Darkened Rooms” – this is the complex, slightly inaccessible and challenging piece of the programme – basically a pas de deux where the dancers move in and out of light boxes suggestive of sunlight piercing old window frames, to live performance of melodic Spanish guitar and then discordant mandolin. Strongly performed, demanding your attention, slightly over long for my liking, but then I am getting old.

Finally we had “Overdrive”, one of those sparky, lively, electronic musicked, athletic pieces that really gets your adrenalin going and makes you want to jump up and join them. Alston at his absolute best.

The dancers were great; Martin Lawrance has been their star dancer for some time now and always takes complete control of the stage. He is mesmeric.I see he is now the company’s Rehearsal Director, and indeed he choreographed To Dance and Skylark. I’m sure he is going to have a great future in dance. The other dancers all worked together splendidly (I particularly liked Anneli Binder for her grace and presence) – although one dancer did I feel slightly “overdance” – he pulled your eye away from the group as his reach and gestures exceeded those of the others, a bit like Cassie in “A Chorus Line” “bopping the hip”. Still, a most minor quibble.

A few years ago I emailed the company after seeing them at the Wycombe Swan on tiptop form and said how much I enjoyed the show. The company manager replied saying he would make sure Richard knew of my comments. I was really chuffed at that.

Total recommendation.

Review – Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake, Milton Keynes Theatre

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Look, I promise you –when I go to see something I don’t enjoy, I really will tell you. There’s nothing duller than someone going on about how great something is. It makes you think they haven’t honed their critical faculties. Honestly, though, mine are pretty honed. I do, however, do my best to see performances that I think I will like. Not much point going to stuff you know you won’t like. I’m not a professional critic after all.

So we come to Thursday night’s performance of Swan Lake by New Adventures, out of Adventures in Motion Pictures. Matthew Bourne’s modern take on an old masterpiece, thereby creating a fresh new masterpiece for the last and this century.

Let me take you back, if I may, 15 years to the Wycombe Swan Theatre and the first time we saw this production. Look, here’s a picture of our old Fridge Magnet! A Saturday matinee, with the chief roles of The Prince and The Swan danced by Scott Ambler and Will Kemp respectively. They remain my favourite performers in the roles; their dancing was fantastic (take that as read) but Will Kemp as the Stranger in the Second Act was precision to perfection. Scott Ambler’s expressions of all the emotions Bourne puts the Prince through are memorable to this day.

In the intervening years I estimate we’ve seen the show another 8 or so times. Basically, whenever it’s on – we go to see it. So going back to see it now is like seeing a lovable old friend, checking that it’s still in rude health and still as full of gusto as ever. Delighted to report that it is.

Here we now have the 2010 Fifteenth Anniversary Tour, with Sam Archer as the Prince and Richard Winsor as the Swan. The dancing remains fantastic; although for me Sam Archer’s expressions are not quite heartfelt enough to be completely convincing. It’s a small cavil. On the other hand, Richard Winsor’s Swan very nearly beat Will Kemp in the favourite stakes in that I (we both in fact) really felt completely sorry for the Swan at the end, whereas normally you feel more sorry for the Prince.Sorry is not strong enough actually – you feel devastated for the Swan. We measure how much we enjoy the performance of the Swan/Stranger by the precision with which he ends up on the Down Stage Right table in the ballroom scene (if you’ve seen the show, you’ll know which bit we mean). Will Kemp still keeps the honour of being tops in that department.

But it remains an absolutely wonderful production. Funny, sad, inventive, insightful. So many memorable moments – the Royal Box scene where the uncouth girlfriend shows herself up is as funny as I’ve ever seen it. The programme notes reveal that Matthew Bourne has changed a few small bits, notably trying to tone down the humour at certain points. Well not in this scene he hasn’t.

The disco at the seedy bar is possibly slightly less funny but the machinations of what’s going on appear a bit clearer now. And in the ballroom scene, the guys who have had their girlfriends semi-seduced by the Stranger now appear to get together to dance a “Who the bloody hell does he think he is” type of dance, which I hadn’t noticed before. The Queen does an excellent “Don’t Touch Me – unless you’re one of those nice boys I fancy” routine and dances tremendously athletically. Wonderful too to see Scott Ambler now cast as the Private Secretary, deviously manipulating half the characters, taking sadistic pleasure in ruining the Prince, dancing with effortless ease.

The swans are as stunning as ever; I know that to some eyes the all-male swans meant homoeroticism, and I’m not denying it’s there, but for me having the swans as male mainly increases their menace, their power and strength, their capacity for harm. The way they emerge nightmare-like in the final scene still sends a shiver of fear down your spine. When the group of swans turn on and attack “our” swan at the end you feel it is because he has transgressed some code of species, and “gone off” with a human. It’s an inventive and effective way of showing the viciousness of prejudice.

You’ll gather I still like the show. So did the capacity crowd (if it was a football match) at the Milton Keynes theatre. This is one of those productions that it should be compulsory to see. It will change your life to some extent.