Sadler's Wells Theatre Archives - Page 7 of 14

★★★★★

“Overflow has seized the moment, in an abstract, but none the less compelling way, to confront us with some of the most pressing consequences of 2020”

The much delayed London premiere of Overflow has now arrived at Sadlers Wells, and judging by the enthusiastic reaction of the audience, the long wait has been worth it. Billed as a response to “digital technology” and “a growing awareness of the impacts…on our thoughts, behaviour and actions in the world”, Overflow is another striking work by cutting edge choreographer, Alexander Whitley. The production is a contemplation of a world that threatens dystopia. Whitley’s signature choreography appears again as a stark, complicated dance of intersecting bodies and technology divided and united, in light and in darkness. Throughout Overflow, Whitley challenges our senses to distinguish between the two. He and the company—dancers, light and sound artists— all play with optical and auditory illusions that leave our perceptions overstimulated and fragile. And that is the point.

As you might expect, there is nothing restful or soothing in Overflow. The dance is beauty born out of dissonance, and the audience has to deal with all the unsettled and confusing feelings prompted by that. It begins with smoky darkness and a pounding beat. There is something apocalyptic about the music (Rival Consoles, courtesy of Erased Tapes) that will please fans of Ben Frost, best known for his work in the TV series Dark —another work that references dystopia. The dancers (Joshua Attwood, Hannah Ekholm, Tia Hockey, David Ledger, Jack Thomson, and Yu-Hsien Wu) are continually emerging from the gloom and melting into it, accompanied by a confusing mix of otherworldly sounds and distorted conversations. The work of lighting designer Guy Hoare, and the talents of the light installation company Children of the Light, are the energies that illuminate even as they confine. The rest of the team, Luca Biada (creative technology), Ana Rajcevic (biometric face masks and costumes) and dramaturgy by Sasha Milavic Davies, provide the finishing touches that make Overflow a satisfying, if discordant, production.

Don’t miss your chance to see the work of the Alexander Whitley Dance Company. It’s seventy minutes that will, at times, be uncomfortable to engage with—and you might want to think twice if you have problems with flashing lights. Otherwise, hurry on down to Sadler’s Wells and get a head start on the zeitgeist as we emerge from the pandemic. Overflow has seized the moment, in an abstract, but none the less compelling way, to confront us with some of the most pressing consequences of 2020. It is worth the unsettling journey.

Reviewed by Dominica Plummer

Photography by Johan Persson

Reunion

Sadler’s Well Theatre

Reviewed – 18th May 2021

★★★★★

“a thrilling showcase of elegance, talent and so much vivacity, it is genuinely breath-taking”

By god, how awful must a show have had to seem, how incredibly dull, how acutely offensive, for me not to have leapt at the chance to escape my ever-shrinking living room for an evening. Even the schizophrenic weather- now sunny, now hailing, now lashing rain- couldn’t have stopped me from skipping out of my front door, mask and sanitiser in hand.

So it goes, I arrive an hour early (a little too keen perhaps), drenched to the skin and grinning like a mad person who hasn’t spoken to any strangers in fourteen months. Luckily ‘Reunion’ is the perfect show to start the year (in May!)

Bringing together five pieces from five eminent choreographers, the English National Ballet delivers a thrilling showcase of elegance, talent and so much vivacity, it is genuinely breath-taking.

Some are simply beautiful. Yuri Possokhov’s ‘Senseless Kindness’, for example, is set bravely to Shostakovich’s Piano Trio No1, and sees four dancers slipping exquisitely in and out of synchronicity, vacillating with the music between romance and pugnacity.

Others are a quaking reminder of how gloriously exciting and invigorating live performance can be. ‘Take Five Blues’, choreographed by Stina Quagebar, is something like if the Jets and the Sharks actually got on really well. At times bordering on the chaotic, these eight dancers seem like they’re having just the best time, expressing playfulness and glee with every bounding leap, every meteoric pirouette.

There are occasions, however, when the accoutrements are in danger of overshadowing. For the first two performances we are graced with the English National Ballet Philharmonic, and there is more than one moment when I find my eye drawn, not to the dancers, but to the violinist bowing low, husky harmonics, or the mezzo soprano (Catherine Backhouse) singing Purcell’s ‘When I Am Laid’ with boundless pathos.

The lighting too is artfully crafted, and nearly the only design aspect throughout. That being said, there’d hardly be any room for anything else. Russell Maliphant’s work could even be described as a dance-light collaboration, rather than one accompanying the other. Video artist Panagiotis Tomaras creates a spectacular of frantic, dappling speckles, aqueous pools and dizzying stripes racing across the stage, coalescing with the dancers’ movements and creating entirely new shapes and effects.

Never was an audience so ready for a show, and even at half-capacity as necessitated by covid, we’re applauding, whooping, even foot-stomping with such ardour at any given opportunity, it feels like a heaving full house. Are we a little more enthused because it’s the first show back? Is this review a little more glowing? Does a man enjoy a meal more if he’s starving? Who’s to say? Who cares? I was ravenous. Who isn’t right now.

Reviewed by Miriam Sallon

Image: Fernanda Oliveira and Fabian Reimair in Echoes, a film by Michael Nunn and William Trevitt, choreographed by Russell Maliphant © English National Ballet

Tag Archives: Sadler’s Wells Theatre

Overflow

★★★★★

Sadler’s Wells Theatre