maliphantworks3 at The Coronet Theatre

Getting to see dance in South West London remains a challenge so the opportunity to see maliphantworks3 at The Coronet Theatre was a no-brainer, especially so as I had enjoyed maliphantworks2 there almost two years previously.

This time we went with friends. It was too difficult to meet up beforehand with us coming from three different directions after doing three different things but somehow we all found ourselves in the Old Swan at the same time. It was a pub I knew reasonably well from my many visits to the Czech and Slovak Embassies nearby and while the pub did nothing special the beer and vegetarian fish and chips were perfectly acceptable. They both did the job.

It was a short walk from there to The Coronet Theatre and we made sure that we arrived in good time to enjoy another drink in what must be the most eclectic theatre bar in London.

The performance opened with the main (i.e. longest) piece of the evening, The Space Between, developed with a video artist. Here light and sound were as important as the dancers who were often lost in the darkness only to slide back into view again. Possibly not for dance purists but I loved it.

After a short break we had two short films that had even less dance in them and just about took me to my limit of being able to accept this as dance. Perhaps that was the point. They were still attention grabbing but in a different way.

The evening closed with Duet which I had seen and loved before, and loved again. It was similar to the first piece with the lighting playing a lesser role, that did not make it better but it did make it different.

The dancing throughout was gentle and fluid, no leaps or rolls here, and the focus was very much on the upper body. The deliberate gloom and the clothing his the details and what we saw was shapes rather than gestures. It was a mood to sweep you along rather than something to focus intently on.

If there is ever a maliphantworks4 I will be going to see that too.

maliphantworks2 at Print Room was dramatic and lovely

Dance is all too rare a beast in the otherwise expansive cultural richness that is London. There is Sadler's Wells and that is about it. That alone would have tempted me to go and the name Maliphant made it compulsory. I had seen several of his pieces performed by other artists, notably Balletboyz, and was keen to see his own group do them so I promptly paid my £25 for Seat D6.

I had not been to Print Room for a few months (there are a lot of theatres in London!) and had forgotten that there were so many cafes nearby so I settled for a vegetable pasty from Wimbledon Station instead. Next time. I had remembered how good the par was there though and before going in I helped myself to a London IPA and had a look at the curiosities adorning the room.

There was a nice symmetry to the evening. There were four dancers, two men and two women, and four pieces and the evening went two men, two women, interval, first mixed couple, second mixed couple.

In Critical Mass the two men, Russell Maliphant was one of them, danced vigorously and closely. It was a display of technical excellence and deep trust. It was two men working together to a common end, co-workers not lovers. The working aspect was reinforced by their matching blue shirts. In it's mood it reminded me of the gorgeous wall scene in The Rodin Project.

Two Times Two was a study in light. The two women were dressed in black outfits with no sleeves that helped to hide their bodies and accentuate their arms. They danced separately in two blurs of whirling and stabbing arms.

Still (an ironic title) played more tricks with lights as bar-code like lines flew confusingly across the stage. The strobe effect was striking as it hid and illuminated different parts of the dancers in quick succession. It was an energetic dance too making full use of the stage.

Duet saw Russell Maliphant and one of the women dance a piece that was almost the mirror of the first except that this time they were definitely a couple and the dancing was slower and more tender.

Even with the interval it was a short show, not much over an hour, but I had no complaints about that.  All of the pieces were dramatic and lovely and they also worked together nicely to make it a sumptuous performance.

Sylvie Guillem's Life in Progress at the London Coliseum

Sylvie Guillem's Life in Progress was her world-wide farewell and while it was sad to see her leave the stage after so many years it was also a worthy celebration of a great talent that still shone brightly.

I wanted to go because I have loved her dancing ever since I was a season ticket holder at the Royal Ballet in the late 80s. It was my last chance to see her and my last chance to say "thank you" by being there.

It was billed as a Sadler's Wells event but was staged at the London Coliseum, presumably because it was bigger. I surprised myself by being able to get a front row seat in the Balcony (the uppermost of four levels) for the bargain price of £20. I chose the seat not for the price but for the view, it was some distance from the stage but for dance (and opera) I prefer to be able to see the whole stage, not just the front of it.

I was not sure how much Sylvie I was going to see and was deliriously happy that she did so much. It was easy to forget that she was fifty years old, especially when she did her trade-marked vertical leg trick.

The performance was also pleasingly longer than I expected. Some dance that I have seen recently has been something like two 25 minutes half, understandable given the physical effort involved, so I was delighted to see four pieces.

The evening opened with a Sylvie solo performed with live musicians on stage half-hidden behind netting. It was poetically choreographed by Akram Khan. The next piece was strange, and I like strange, but was a duet with two men and I was there to see Sylvie. The third piece was a lovely duet with Sylvie and Emanuela Montanari, the first piece she had ever done with another woman. This was choreographed by Russell Maliphant so it was no surprise that I liked it.

After the break came the biggest and best surprise of the evening. Syvlie performed Mats Ek’s solo piece Bye which I had seen her do two years previously on her 6000 Miles Away tour. I loved it then and I loved it (at least) as much this time. It was a fitting end to a fantastic show and a glorious career.

BalletBoyz at Richmond Theatre

For some reason I've dropped off the Richmond Theatre emailing list, despite subscribing with multiple email addresses, so it took the good will of a friend to alert me to the return of BalletBoyz who I had last seen there almost exactly a year before. She also did the hard work of getting the tickets.

We were well placed in the stalls, my seat was H8, and I was pleased that the offset seating gave me a clear view of the stage.

BalletBoyz were touring their theTALENT show which I had seen all or parts of twice the previous year. I was looking forward to seeing it again as dance, like music, gets better the more it is experienced as that allows the detail to shine through.

The first piece, by Liam Scarlett, was a series of connected short pieces that usually featured just a few of the eleven dancers. It was very episodic and the episode that stuck in my mind the most had the dancers in pairs performing a series of arm and head movements that looked as though they were fighting each other, but it was much prettier than that.

That quick-fire section of short delicate moves was something of an exception and the signature movement across the whole piece was full arm swings, a la Pete Townsend.

In the second half it was Russell Maliphant's turn to show us what he could do with the BalletBoyz. His approach was more collegiate, it started with all eleven dancers on stage forming two concentric circles, and more physical with plenty of lifting and climbing. He weaved patterns with his dancers that filled the stage with so much movement that it was hard to keep score.

My companion for the evening uttered a very audible "Wow!" at one point and I was forced to glare at her, though I could understand her reasons.

BalletBoyz show that male dance is no longer simply about leaping high and that physical strength can be used to more subtle and more beautiful ends.

BalletBoyz at The Rose (beautiful)

The BalletBoyz have a new home and they now live in Kingston upon Thames with me. To celebrate this they put on a special performance at The Rose.

I was there in Row A.

The Summer Gala, as they chose to call it, took us through some of the Balletboyz' history in the first half and then gave us a recent work in the second. One of the nice touches was that meant that the show was bookended by two pieces by Russell Maliphant.

Critical Mass was danced by the Balletboyz' founders. It is possible that they are less athletic than they once were but that did not matter here as Critical Mass is dance as close combat with the two bodies flowing around and in-between each other. Technically brilliant with flawless timing and so much to enjoy in the movement and the interactions between the performers.

The other pieces came thick and fast with quite a few surprises along the way, not least the appearance of women in some of them.

The Rite of Spring was another highlight despite being cruelly chopped to fit in to the gala.

The pieces were all different and all modern. And that meant lots of tumbling, rolling and sliding rather than the athletic leaping that used to dominate male ballet dancing.I much prefer dancers on the floor to dancers in the air - it looks better and there is more that the dancers can do in transitioning between positions. Once launched in to the air the only option is to come down again.

After the break we were treated to a full-length work, Fallen by Russell Maliphant. I had seen Fallen earlier in the year at Richmond Theatre and was delighted to be able to see it again. It is a beautiful piece of dance and seeing it in the context of the history of the BalletBoyz was a bonus. It shared some of the delicate close moves of the opening piece and added strong group work. Being simplistic and unnecessarily stereotypical, it was like a mix of female and male dancing performed brilliantly by just men that the absence of women was not noticed and was not relevant.

Now that BalletBoyz have moved to Kingston I hope that they will be appearing at the Rose regularly. Some pre-tour previews would be very nice.

BalletBoyz at Richmond Theatre

My mission to see how dance is certainly helped when it comes to a local theatre. This time it was the BalletBoyz who made my life easy by popping up at the Richmond Theatre.

Life was made even easier by friends finding out about the event first and booking the tickets.

The only trouble came from the logistics as I was working in Cardiff that day. A prompt (i.e. early) exist got me back to Richmond at 6:45 and that gave me just enough time for a pint of Winter Warmer and a small metal bucket of chunky chips in the Orange Tree pub. One day a pub will decide not to serve chips in a metal bucket and we will all be shocked.

Watered and slightly fed I took my seat in Row E of the stalls.

First up was Liam Scarlett’s SERPENT, a study of unison and virtuosity featuring a  score by Max Richter and stunning lighting from Michael Hulls.

It opens with a brief video in which Liam explains what he was trying to do with the work and we saw some of the rehearsals in progress.

The BalletBoyz were dressed in tight almost skin coloured briefs and nothing else.

Despite the unorthodox start and dress what followed was fairly traditional ballet. At least the individual moves were recognisable though clearly the over all effect was somewhat different from the usual with eight men and no women.

It was a very active piece with dancers constantly exiting and entrancing. This meant that the number on the stage varied constantly and that led to us having dances with one, two, six and eight dancers. The moves and combinations were pretty enough but it failed to go anywhere and felt a little light because of that.

After the break we had Russell Maliphant's FALLEN, a "display of grace and power" featuring a score by French cinema composer Armand Amar.

This is what I had come to see.

The dancers were dressed more normally in something approaching Army fatigues but the dancing was very modern. In particular greater use was made of the vertical space, as this picture illustrates, with lots of climbing, lifting, tumbling and rolling.

The shapes made were also more modern than in the first piece. Again the picture has an example of this with the bent arms of the man at the back in the centre.

I felt that this piece was more varied in pace and emotion too. There was a slow tender part with just two dancers and the performance built to am amazing climax with all the dancers on stage moving, climbing and throwing. They were behaving like a single well-oiled machine. This was a masterpiece of choreography with everybody having to be in exactly the right place at exactly the right time otherwise the machine would have broken down and one of the thrown dancers would not have been caught.

The icing on the impressive cake was swapping tweets with Russell Maliphant afterwards to let him know personally how much I liked the show.

Russell Maliphant's The Rodin Project at Sadler's Wells

I am trying hard to get more dance in to my cultural diary and as part of this I picked three shows to go and see in the new season at Sadler's Wells.

First up was Russell Maliphant Company's The Rodin Project, which I chose mostly on the reputation of the company.

I decided to go for the cheap seats so that I could go more often and was early enough in booking to get seats in the front-row in the upper circle, a dizzy height that I had not climbed to before. From there you get a good view of the interesting ceiling.

Good connections on the bus / train / bus got me there in time for a drink beforehand and was persuaded to buy a bottle of bubbly on the grounds that it was a better deal than buying four glasses. Made sense to me.

The Rodin Project opens slowly and classically. The three men and three women are classically dressed is loose white robes and they move in traditional balletic style with gentle flowing moves. There is some graceful rolling which while not strictly classical keeps within the traditional theme by being soft and fluid.

The music has an Indian twang to it. It is a new piece commissioned for the project and it does sound fresh and modern if not overtly so. 

The first half is all very pretty if inconsequential. There is nothing to argue with but nothing to get particularly excited about either.

A break to finish off the bubbly then back for the second half.

That is when everything changes. The dancing style becomes overtly modern and more physical. Arms and legs are bent in to exaggerated and unnatural shapes and the gentle rolls evolve in to more expansive leaps and tumbles.

The set is the same simple mound and wall that it was in the first half only now the soft white drapes are gone and they are revealed in their brutal industrial starkness. The wall come in to its own and is treated almost like gymnastics apparatus as the dancers moved over it in a way that defies belief and gravity.

In one scene two of the men dance together on the wall in a display of strength, grace and extraordinary movement. This is the highlight of the evening and draws loud applause from the appreciative and knowledgeable audience that knows that it is not meant to applaud mid-performance, but does so anyway.

Sadler's Wells have been good enough to put part of the section on YouTube.
 



If first half may is just pretty then the second is beautiful. The movement is fluid and vivid, strong but not aggressive, and in sympathy with the music that directs the action without overpowering it. This is not Swan Lake.

Perhaps the most pleasing thing about the evening was the full house. Dance this good deserves to be seen widely.