★★★★

“When the show reaches its climax, the performers let it all out and enter a superbly choreographed frenzy”

For those knowledgeable in the dance scene, the name Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, who’s been choreographing since 1980, is more than familiar: it signifies a whole principle that explores dance in its simplest form, which is none other than walking. In this exquisite performance, De Keersmaeker’s company, Rosas, take it a step further and seek to redefine dance, its source and what instigates it.

At first, there is a recreation of the tempest, evoked resourcefully by using an enormous see-through sheet and a fan, and a dancer that moves like they’re caught in it. Before long, the rest of the company joins and embarks on this journey of walking, moving and dancing in any way imaginable. Patterns are repeated, new shapes introduced and there is an interesting balance between group sequences and individual ones, without ever losing the sense of the collective and the company working together.

One of the aspects of dance that the audience are invited to consider is what we can dance to. Is it strictly a very specific type of composed music or can it be more than that? ‘Exit Above’ shows that there is no such limit and if dance can be created from simply walking, then what accompanies movement can be anything we want: acoustic guitar, songs, complex instrumental beats, bird sounds, even silence.

This show is the musicians’ as much as it is the dancers’, with Meskerem Mees, Jean-Marie Aerts, Carlos Garbin providing their respective experience and style to create an intriguing set of music that incorporates electronic beats, vocals and blues. Mees and Garbin not only are performing the music live onstage, but also participate in most of the sequences alongside the rest of the performers, creating a living organism in front of our very eyes. Mees’ voice fills the theatre with an eerie and haunting tingle that accompanies Garbin’s exceptional playing beautifully.

There is no set, except for the instruments used by the musicians, the parts used to create the tempest in the beginning and a set of colourful stripes taped on the floor (scenography by Michel François). The stripes overlap, creating different shapes and angles, and match the performers’ outfits (costume design by Aouatif Boulaich), which keep changing and evolving, like the show itself does. It’s a visual feast of shirts added, skirts shared, tops removed, even thrown towards the audience.

In terms of lighting (light design by Max Adams), for the most part of the show it’s kept quite simple, with parts of the backstage being visible. A single, wide spotlight occasionally moves around the stage in a circle, accompanying the path paved by the dancers themselves, like a gravitational force.

When the show reaches its climax, the performers let it all out and enter a superbly choreographed frenzy, though, at times, it feels like chaos takes over and the inventiveness diminishes due to overused repetition.

Without a doubt, this is an extraordinary collaboration that gave birth to a piece unlike any other. Even if the lack of tangible meaning may trouble members of the audience that are unfamiliar with Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s work, the show’s variety of pace, movement quality and tone, as well as its daring nature make it a must-see for all.

FRONTIERS at Sadler’s Wells Theatre

★★★★

“an impressive showcase of talent, both established and on the up”

The National Ballet of Canada arrived at Sadler’s Wells this season for the first time in over a decade. Company Director Hope Muir leans into the national heritage with a programme of works by contemporary Canadian choreographers, playing to the crowd with choreographer du jour, and Sadler’s Wells Associate Artist, Crystal Pite topping off the bill.

The programme starts with its oldest work from 2013, Passion (header image – photo Bruce Zinger), by James Kudelka. Kudelka is a former Artistic Director of the company, although he created this work after his tenure, originally for Houston Ballet. It’s a wonderful place to start – directly exploring the evolution of the form from the romantic era of the 19th century through to the contemporary era of the 20th. Two duets intermittently draw attention. The first, a classical duet directly adhering to ballet’s 19th century heritage, full of arabesques, pirouettes and picture-perfect lifts that could be snapshots for a textbook. In contrast, we find a man and woman more passionately displaying their relationship – dressed in more simple, everyday costume more reminiscent of a Balanchine rehearsal studio image. The juxtaposition between romanticism and sensuality provides a rich seam for cultural criticism. But there is so much happening between the active corps, the romantic era principals and first soloist duets, and the contemporary duet that something’s got to give. Unfortunately, it’s often the poor corps, who are run ragged by Kudelka’s choreography, hardly leaving the stage or pausing from their jeté’s.

After the interval, are two pieces by female choreographers more alike to each other than to the first piece, though distinct in scale.

Islands (image above – photo Karolina Kuras), is a duet for two women by Emma Portner, a dancer-choreographer with a dauntingly impressive CV for being not-yet 30. Genevieve Penn-Nabity and Heather Ogden reappear fresh from leading the previous piece. Whilst not immediately clear from the off, the dancers are conjoined in a shared pair of trousers. This leads to some wonderful optical illusions, where it’s unclear who which limbs belong to. Disappointingly, the conceit does not continue throughout the whole piece. Whilst the movement of both dancers continues to be wedded to each other as the score moves from more electronic sounds to an almost choral pop piece by Lily Konigsberg, I cannot get past the pile of awkwardly abandoned trousers, symbolising an inspired idea only half-explored.

This notion is only solidified by experiencing Angels’ Atlas (image below – photo Karolina Kuras), a piece created for the company in 2020 by Crystal Pite. Pite is singular in her vision, uniquely exploring colossal concepts about the human condition, such as grief in Betroffenheit, the plight of refugees in Flight Pattern or, in this case, the infinite awesomeness of the cosmos in contrast with individual humanity. Angels Atlas fills the stage with the full company, a Pite signature technique, against a light shattered backdrop, designed by Jay Gower Taylor and Tom Visser, to give an ethereal quality, emphasised by the liturgical chorus. With a cast as large as this, potentially up to fifty dancers, much of the effect comes from the indistinguishability of individuals from the chorus of movement. That being said, Siphesihle November stands out as an utterly bewitching presence amongst the crowd. It’s subtle, but palpable, as if his every exhalation and extension lasts just a moment longer than his neighbours – feeling, rather than performing his role. This is the closest I have come to experiencing dance as hypnosis – the synchronised and canonical movements, combining with the lighting and sound inducing a trance-like state.

Frontiers: Choreographers of Canada achieves what it likely set out to do – return to London with an impressive showcase of talent, both established and on the up, on and behind the stage. Kudelka and Portner’s pieces are enjoyable thematic explorations, but really it’s all about Pite – who never misses.

EXIT ABOVE at Sadler’s Wells Theatre

★★★★

“When the show reaches its climax, the performers let it all out and enter a superbly choreographed frenzy”

EXIT ABOVE at Sadler’s Wells Theatre

Reviewed on 13th November 2024

by Stephanie Christodoulidou

Photography by Anne Van Aerschot

Previously reviewed at Sadler’s Wells venues:

EXIT ABOVE

EXIT ABOVE

FRONTIERS at Sadler’s Wells Theatre

★★★★

“an impressive showcase of talent, both established and on the up”

FRONTIERS at Sadler’s Wells Theatre

Reviewed on 2nd October

by Amber Woodward

Photography by Bruce Zinger and Karolina Kuras

Previously reviewed at this venue:

FRONTIERS

FRONTIERS