SKATEPARK
SADLER’S WELLS EAST
★★★★
“a dizzying meld of music and movement”
The spacious new Sadler’s Wells theatre in Stratford’s Olympic Park was established in part to capture the raw urban energy of East London, a bottom-up approach to curation giving platforms to non-traditional and ethnic performers.
In the foyer, free dance classes, with participants looking out on the Aquatic Centre and London Stadium. Elsewhere, break dancing, hip hop, kathak and waacking, reflecting the diversity and curated sub-cultures of those who live nearby.
Skatepark, from Danish dancer and choreographer Mette Ingvartsen is a case in point. Straight from the half-pipes of some grimy streetscape to the gilded stage of Sadler’s Wells.
To underscore those credentials, Ingvartsen gives over the vast stage – ramps, grind rails, ledges – to local skate groups for a pre-performance, with some of the riders having been hand-picked from earlier workshops to join the core company.
The whole thing is raw energy, with a rap battle vibe, tinged with noir and playing to a younger-skewing audience. If the event had nothing else to evidence its visit than community impact it would have done its job.
Fortunately, there is plenty here. Twelve performers as a hypnotic, throbbing whirligig.
At first the free-form chaos of the pre-performance spills into the production proper and there’s an anarchy of skaters playing, showing off, riding their luck.
But, gradually, something more organised takes shape, the individuals coalesce, and patterns emerge.
Human nature insists we impose a story. Perhaps the skatepark is a Petri dish, an evolution of sorts, with individuals merging, co-operating, learning how to communicate and ultimately forming a cohesive hive mind. Something out of nothing.
The look and feel are essential. There are the typical hard-edged urban trappings – steel barriers, neon graffiti, a sense of outsiders playing their thrashing sounds too loud. The cast comes out of Snow Crash or Mad Max, some punk dystopia. They occasionally wear disturbing masks or lose themselves in voluminous hoodies.
Not just skateboards either, but roller skates, and Parkour, human agency matching wheeled efficiency. There’s an electric guitar and urgent street timpani. Most effectively, the skaters can become singers and dancers too, throwing shapes or exhibiting the fever and madness of the mosh pit.
And forever there is a heartbeat bass pumping, like life itself, sometimes with Eurotrash vocals shouted in our faces, other times – hauntingly – delivered as monk-like chants accompanied by sweeping, balletic movement in the semi-dark.
This all builds, slowly, organically, with imperfections and tumbles and missteps. The subtle progression suggests an inevitable self-organising drive, like an ant march on wheels.
This leads to a truly rousing climax, a dizzying meld of music and movement. The audience is swelling too, co-opted into this ragged community of souls.
Something weirdly beautiful is happening, primal yet fiercely intelligent.
Remarkable really.
SKATEPARK
SADLER’S WELLS EAST
Reviewed on 10th April 2025
by Giles Broadbent
Photography by Pierre Gondard
Previously reviewed at Sadler’s Wells venues:
MIDNIGHT DANCER | ★★★★ | March 2025
THE DREAM | ★★★★★ | March 2025
DEEPSTARIA | ★★★★ | February 2025
VOLLMOND | ★★★★★ | February 2025
DIMANCHE | ★★★★ | January 2025
SONGS OF THE WAYFARER | ★★★★ | December 2024
NOBODADDY (TRÍD AN BPOLL GAN BUN) | ★★★★ | November 2024
THE SNOWMAN | ★★★★ | November 2024
EXIT ABOVE | ★★★★ | November 2024
ΑΓΡΙΜΙ (FAUVE) | ★★★ | October 2024
