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Review: Du Goudron et des Plumes at the Barbican

January 31, 2011 in dance, Review | No comments

As the lights come up on this production, I was reminded of the last time I was sitting in the Barbican Theatre to see the dreadful Nearly 90, which I couldn’t even bring myself to write about considering I only sat through half of it. Again, I had booked the tickets without really knowing what this production was, as it was all part of the brilliant freeB scheme that I shall sadly no longer be able to partake in come next month. The past year I have seen absolute genius and absolute trite wankery on the Barbican Theatre stage, and as I investigated the show two days before I was worried that it may be the latter once again.

Du Goudron et des Plumes is a circus piece by Mathurin Bolze for Compagnie MPTA, and is playing at the Barbican as part of the London International Mime Festival. It’s roughly inspired by the classic novel Of Mice and Men and primarily takes place on a floating platform by five very elastic performers.

Very quickly after the floating platform rises from the stage and the performers start throwing themselves around the set, comprised of wooden planks slotted in to said platform, it becomes clear that this is fast falling into the genius category. Constantly sitting somewhere between acrobatics and dance, with some of the most amazing choreography I’ve seen (and not even in a dance piece!), Du Goudron et des Plumes keeps you on the edge of your seat from start to finish. The immensely clever use of set pieces, video and lighting are inspired. What’s more, you are constantly trying to follow the meaning behind all the action, which while never makes itself overtly clear, still remains gripping instead of falling into the trite wankery that these kind of pieces often do.

In essence, this is an exciting piece of theatre. It has all the wow factor of something like Cirque du Soleil, but with none of the pretense and what I’m guessing is a fraction of the budget. It tramples all over contemporary dance works like Nearly 90 and Come Been and Gone, without actually being a contemporary dance piece. It’s achingly beautiful and expertly performed. If only it had a longer season…

Du Goudron et des Plumes closed at the Barbican on the 29th January 2010.

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Review: The Nutcracker – Pentameters Theatre

December 19, 2010 in dance, Review, Theatre | 1 comment

Pentameters Theatre is a little gem of a theatre that sits above a pub in picturesque Hampstead. I must say that I was quite excited in my lead up to the show. Not only was I seeing what looked like a dark, Tim Burton-esque retelling of the Nutcracker, but I was also venturing into one of the most haunted and picturesque parts of London for the first time. For reference to the Tim Burton stylee, see my review of Nevermore by Catalyst Theatre company, which still stands as one of the best musicals I have ever seen. For reference to the ghosts, see my ldnghosthunt. Unfortunately, I didn’t see any ghosts, aside from the ghosts of missed opportunity in Butterfuly Wheels’ The Nutcracker.

Butterfly Wheels is a new theatre company, established by Alice Old and Kayleigh Allenby a few years ago, who have had mixed reception in the past. Their past two productions, Seven Sins at St Leonards Church in Shoreditch and Bedtime Tales at Pentameters, both received glowing reviews, with the former showing that the company has a talent with immersive theatre. For The Nutcracker, they went back to their roots, with a dark retelling of a classic, tying in dance, theatre and multimedia elements.

Butterfly Wheels almost pulled it off. While there are some fantastic performances including Gabriella Gadbsy as a particularly masculine Harlequin and Amelia Marchant as One of the Mouse King’s henchmen (women?), some of the other performers have a slightly amateur feel to them. I think this isn’t actually a fault of the performers, but the casting. The show would’ve benefited greatly from having men play the male roles, giving them the raw strength they needed, with Tim C J Chew as the sole male giving a great performance. The narration also feels a little stilted, with voice over, music and the actor’s voices providing story. Getting rid of the voice over, and keeping the music within the overall design theme of urban meets dark-gothic would’ve helped.

However, the design concepts behind the show are fantastic. The skewed perspectives and use of very Tim Burton-esque gothic works wonders. However, one thing that always grates me is where a brilliant concept is let down by small budget. There were a few instances where embracing lo-fi may have helped, especially in a small space where the audience can scrutinize every piece. Also, the few places where live music was used were fantastic and made me wonder why they didn’t use it throughout.

Overall, The Nutcracker isn’t a bad production. To be honest, children and teenagers (to who the show is pitched to) will love it. What frustrated me was that the ideas and concepts excited me so much that I was disappointed with their execution due to lack of budget and outside interest. I’d definitely keep an eye on Butterfly Wheels, though, as I think that they are capable of brilliance.

The Nutcracker plays at Pentameters Theater, Hampstead until 9 January, 2011

Review: Shoes – Sadler’s Wells

September 7, 2010 in dance, Review, Theatre | No comments

There are a lot of preconceptions that can be proven wrong. For example, just because a show is being produced by Sadler’s Wells, doesn’t mean that it is strictly a dance piece. Just because the cast includes up to three dropouts from a reality tv program, doesn’t mean that they, or the show, is lacking quality. Just because a show is a two hour celebration of shoes doesn’t mean that it is, bluntly, a bit crap. These are the preconceptions that one might take into the Sadler’s Wells produced show Shoes, that stars three contestants from last series’ So You Think You Can Dance. These are the preconceptions that one will most certainly not leave Sadler’s Wells still holding.

Shoes is the brainchild of Jerry Springer: The Opera composer Richard Thomas, and award winning choreographer Stephen Mears. It is a combination of Parisian, revue style comedy, and contemporary/hip hop dance show, all about the fascination that society has with footwear. The show is performed by a small band, four singers and a host of dancers of varying dance backgrounds, from hip hop to ballet. In essence, it is a string of mostly amusing songs about different shoes or shoe designers, accompanied by a troupe of very talented dances, with dance styles encompassing contemporary, hip hop, tap, ballroom and everything in between. The material is reminiscent of Jerry Springer, without the crassness, and some of the funniest moments are in the short connecting pieces, such as ‘If you walked a mile in someone elses shoes.’

The singers in question should be a drawcard to the show in itself. Alison Jiear, who won the Olivier for her role in Jerry Springer and has since become somewhat of a cult gay icon, makes up half of the female contingent, with the Australian quirky-pop star Kate Miller-Heidke holding up the other side. While a large portion of the theatre going public will know Jiear, it’s Miller-Heidke who is the one who should be far more well known. She is a multi-platinum recording artist, who has won countless awards and plays sell out shows in rather large venues back in Australia. However, in London, where she now resides, she plays tiny venues like the Borderline in Soho between international tours with the likes of Ben Folds. She also took to the stage in Sydney’s production of Jerry Springer last year with David Wenham as Mary Jane. While not wanting to rabbit on about the ladies, it’s very clear that these two walk away with the show. Their performances are simply perfect and handle the slightly operatic styling meets comedic gold of Richard Thomas extremely well. It probably helps that both have had first hand experience with his material before, as well.

Then there’s the dancers…

It seems that even though there have been a few selections from the depths of reality tv, it is purely because of talent, and not for marquee value (quite the same as Blaze). Chloe Campbell, Mandy Montanez and Drew McOnie all shine on stage, definitely performing to the standards, and in some places exceeding those, of the other performers on stage. However, it is always hard to not focus on people you recognise when they are part of a larger dance troupe. Teneisher Bonner wowed in the show’s only throughline in story, as a hip hop dancer moving from new sneaker to new sneaker. The stylised contemporary-hip hop dance was perfectly choreographed and worked brilliantly with the rest of the show.

There is no reason that Shoes shouldn’t transfer to a very successful West End run. All the elements are there for an incredibly crowd-pleasing show. However, if you want to be one of those who can rather pompously say that you saw it before it got big, then make sure you snap up a ticket in the criminally short run at Sadler’s Wells or wait for the rumours of a national tour to come true.

Shoes is playing at Sadler’s Wells Theatre until the 11th of September

Review: Cruel – the Barbican

July 1, 2010 in dance, Review | No comments

After the agony that was Michael Clark’s Come, Been and Gone, I’ll be honest when I say I was not looking forward to Cia de Danca Deborah Colker’s Cruel. My brain concluded that it was probably a wanky Cuban dance piece from Cuba, combining a whole bunch of dance styles I have never particularly likes (latin dance just doesn’t do it for me) with contemporary dance and packaging it in a celebration of cruelty. Hip hip hooray.

If only you could write sarcasm.

I even allowed a little extra time before the show to throw down a few G&Ts to make sure I was in as cynical mood as possible. When the curtain rose on Cruel I realise I was grossly misinformed. This was not a wanky art dance piece. My brain was wrong. Thanks, brain.

Cruel is a collection of responses to difficult personal experiences from the cast and production team, focussing around a group of words. The choreographer and assistant choreographer presentedthe cast with very broad ideas, and then privately interviewed them on difficult experiences they’d had that relate to these broad concepts. The dancers then lived through these experiences again through a mixture of Latin, traditional and contemporary dance, with sometimes cathartic, sometimes disturbing results. However, the individual stories aren’t what’s important here, as the Choreographer’s Assistant states in the program, “What you see is not a soap opera, not a play. This is dancing. The stories are there so they may be understood by each viewer, in their own particular way.”

What’s important in this show is the feeling that you get sitting in the audience, watching these people contort and move in ways I wasn’t sure was possible with the human body. The passion and the feeling they convey through the entire show is phenomenal. Also, what’s core through the entire show is the quality. The dance is fluid, beautiful and full of true feeling and the dancers are all completely flawless. The choreography does an amazing job of conveying themes and stories, the sets are simple and perfect, with the table in the first act acting as a perfect piece to centre the action around, and the collection of mirrors a perfect representation of the themes present in the second act.

My relationship with modern dance seems to have improved through Cruel. Maybe it’s just that I don’t like bad modern dance.

Cruel is playing at the Barbican until July 3

Review: Come, been and gone – The Barbican

June 9, 2010 in dance, Review | 2 comments

Come, been and gone can officially be added to the list of things I don’t get. Michael Clark is seen as a visionary in the contemporary dance world, and this celebration of his work over the past 25 years has recieved rave reviews from some respectable critics. Some of the quotes have included “shockingly good,” “A thunderous electrifying evening of attention-seeking sound, stimulating visuals, and impressive fine-tuned focused dancers,” and “‘Come, been and gone’ blew our tiny minds“ . My take is that it’s a bloated, pretentious, wanky dance piece. I should also point out that I can only justify reviewing two thirds of the production as I left at the second interval.

Frankly, I was bored.

I think this comes down to the fact that modern dance and I seem to not get along. While some people see modern pieces of art, reflecting the harsh nature of existence in a postmodern, 21st century world, I see a lady in a mirror ball body stocking flailing around on stage. Sure, I can’t pigeonhole a very large, diverse area of dance, but it’s this arts for arts sake style of modern dance that I abhor. To me it lacks feeling and connection, and seems so hell bent on making a statement that they forget that they look like a pretentious bunch of twats leaping around the stage like idiots.

Sure, the dancers were clearly all at the top of their game. Hand selected as the best from Michael Clark’s company, they perform his work with the utmost precision. However, it’s not the dancers I had a problem with, it was the dance. Also, the sound designer deserved to be shot. In Swamp, the first section of the show, it sounded as if the composer/sound designer had just learnt how to use sequencing software and threw every effect at the track to make it sound like Aphex Twin, but failing. Terribly.The treatment given to The Velvet Underground was similarly shocking, with tracks pushed to the point of distortion with no other reason apart from the fact it’s ‘edgy’.

If you’re already a fan of Michael Clark’s work then you could possibly enjoy this. However, if you’re already a fan you’ve already seen it and stopped at the first paragraph. If you’re not then the show was beautifully summed up by my company for the night:

‘flicky leg, flicky leg. Chicken wing, chicken wing. Person dressed as a disco ball.’

Come, been and gone is playing at the Barbican until 12 June

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Review (of sorts): Ballet Shoes

April 26, 2010 in dance, Theatre | 2 comments

Ballet Shoes, if you didn’t know, is an extremely popular book amongst young British girls from the 1930s. It tells the story of three young orphans who have been picked up on an explorer’s travels and sent to live in his house in London. Throughout the book they learn to sing, dance and act so they can earn money as performers to support the household. The title comes from the pair of ballet shoes that arrive with the youngest, Posy. It’s a story I had never heard of until coming into this country. Reluctant to read it after having it forcibly thrust into my hands by my fiancé, I instead had it read to me, as I just couldn’t picture it with my antipodean accent in my head and instead needed a true Brit to read it to me (my best excuse yet).

Surprisingly, I really enjoyed the book. It’s witty and light, and the pace is perfect for children, never dwelling on any event too long. This is why I got rather excited when said fiancé secured tickets to a staging of Ballet Shoes by Sadler’s Wells and the London Children’s Ballet (LCB). I assumed I’d be witnessing a play with dancing and music. I assumed wrong. Instead I witnessed a ballet based on the story, performed entirely by children between the ages of 9 to 15. After recovering from the initial shock and slight disappointment (the entire story isn’t about ballet), I became quite confused. I have endeavoured to review every piece of theatre, dance and cabaret I see on stage in London. I’ve so far failed twice, once with Hairspray, due to laziness, and Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, due to seeing the final performance. However, I feel slightly at odds reviewing a piece that only contains children. How can I compare the work of 30 odd children to seasoned west end performers? Instead this is a psuedo-review. What that means exactly, I’m not sure, but it puts my conscience at rest.

This is the second time LCB, having commissioned and staged the ballet in 2001. The show suffers slightly as a ballet, as the whole story isn’t about ballet and therefore one of the characters becomes the focus. Also, the dialogue in the book is brilliant and witty and would work well staged. However, despite this I thoroughly enjoyed this show. Everythe bal dancer on stage was a pleasure to watch, and there was some truly exceptional talent amongst the cast. It’s surprising to read in the program that only 50% of LCB performers go on to pursue professional dance or theatre, with 25% not even retaining dance as a hobby. I always find it a shame to see talent like that wasted, usually due to a career in arts not being seen as a serious career.

There were some exceptional performers amongst a very strong cast. The three girls who play Pauline (Laura Croom), Petrova (Lowri Shone) and Posy (Maria Gregory) were all very good dancers. Surprisingly, it was Shone, as Petrova, who was the standout of the three. In the book, Petrova is the one girl who doesn’t excel, prefering cars and aeroplanes. However, to say she was the best dancer is like picking your favourite member of the Rat Pack. They were all very good, with perfect characterisation for each girl. The other two standouts for me were the young men who played Mr Simpson (Ben Radford) and the Stage Manager. Both were exquisite to watch, with immense talent, something that was made more apparent with the gorgeous pieces of choregraphy they were given. Really, there were only one or two dancers with parts who weren’t up to the same standard as the rest of the company. Even then, these were still extremely talented dancers, especially given their age.

The fact that this show was included in the Sadler’s Wells season is a testament to the talent of these youngsters. However, it’s heartening to see a major dance company like Sadler’s Wells work with a company like LCB. Not enough large theatre companies are supporting youth arts initiatives such as this and puting them in seasons amongst the best performers in their field.

Ballet Shoes played at the Peacock Theatre from 22-25 April.

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Review: Blaze

March 22, 2010 in dance, Review, Theatre | 8 comments

Blaze at Peacock Theatre

I feel like there should be a support group for this kind of thing. I’ll start things off…

Hi, my name’s Luke and for about 10 weeks in the year I am addicted to So You Think You Can Dance.

It is because of his addiction that I went along to Peacock Theatre this weekend past to see the new offering from Sadler’s Wells and panDaddy Productions, Blaze. It’s a ‘streetdance sensation’ very much in the same style of Bounce, that took the West End by storm in 2005, and features two dancers from said reality tv show. I will admit that this last little factum is the only reason I purchased tickets, but I’m extremely glad I did.

However, on the way back to my abode I found myself in a slight quandry. Having never seen a ‘streetdance sensation’, or for that fact any modern dance show, how was I to review? How do I review something that I really have no point of reference for? Therefore, I have decided to pretend that I am an afficianado of dance. I’ve been to the ballet… Once. I own some dance pants and an aged pair of jazz slippers. I can do this.

To be honest, I didn’t really know what to expect from Blaze. I like hip hop dance as much as the next middle class white boy, but an hour and a half of it? What resulted was an hour and a half of pure entertainment. It helps that these are 16 of the best hip hop dancers and breakers currently performing. Also, they have a team of 7 choreographers from across the globe, as well as one of the top West End directors/choreographers at the helm. Add to this some of the best lighting and projection work that I’ve seen on the London stage, and it’s hard to see where they could go wrong.

The dancers were all extremely strong. it’s interesting to see both Lizzie Gough and Tommy Franzen from sytycd in the context of a show surrounded by other professional dancers. You are led to believe that these guys are the best that the UK has to offer. What struck me is how much they blended in with the troupe. They may have been on tv for a few months, but they are definitely not the best out there. In saying that, Tommy, who came second in sytycd, at times did stand out from the rest of the dancers. Not so much due to talent, which is definitely in no short supply, but more so because he has an extremely distinctive style. So much so that it was incredibly obvious which routine he choreographed for the show. I honestly believe he has a future in choreography, with his routine being one of the most enjoyable in the show.

The three breakers (four if you count the MC) are clearly at the top of their game. The moves that these guys pulled off were only matched in precision and skill by sheer lunacy. It’s amazing to see these three dancers, nay athletes, pull off some of the most death defying moves I’ve ever seen. The little comic interludes for the three breakers were also very well done.

While all the routines were quite amazing, the highlight of the night was definitely the extremely touching couch routine. The two dancers, Rowen Hawkins and Lil’ Steph, portrayed two quarrelling lovers with a grace and poignancy usually only seen in contemporary dance routines. While it felt a little sytycd, I was sucked right in. It’s a problem I have.

The technical aspects of the show, particularly the lighting and projection work, were simply breathtaking. The way that both worked with the set design was slightly awe inspiring. Special mention of Lizzie’s 3D routine, where the dancer interacted wih the lighting and projection flawlessly. It was a fantastic display of performance and technology working in ways that theatre often refuses to. The lighting designers, Patrick Woodroffe and Adam Bassett, and video designers, Mehmet Akten, Robin McNicholas and Jane Laurie, need to win something for this show. Now.

Overall, whilst being a slight dance philistine, I enjoyed Blaze immensely. Even a dance moron like myself can see and appreciate the flawless technique and immense skill that everyone in his production posesses. I wholeheartedly suggest seeing this before it moves on in a weeks time.

Blaze is playing at the Peacock Theatre until March 28.

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