Dance Reflections Week 2 Review
Week 2 of Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels ranged from the sublime to the frankly tedious
In the UK now we rarely see work from the second giant of contemporary dance featured in Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels, the American dancer and choreographer Merce Cunningham, who died in 2009 and whose company was wound up two years later. The first, Trisha Brown, featured in Week 1.
An opportunity, then, to watch two of his archived masterpieces is to be welcomed; and Merce Cunningham Forever, a double bill brought to Sadler’s Wells by Lyon Opera Ballet, was very much the highlight of Week 2 of the festival.
Lyon Opera Ballet, Merce Cunningham Forever – 5*
Lyon Opera Ballet dancers are undoubtedly among the foremost Cunningham interpreters, and this was evident from their immaculate performances in two very distinct works: Beach Birds (1991) and BIPED (1999).
In Beach Birds danced to a gentle score for piano, violin and rainstick by Cunningham’s partner, John Cage, played live, 11 dancers in creamy white unitards with black shoulders and sleeves that covered their hands (Marsha Skinner), suggested the movements of wildfowl: a fluttering hand here, a balance on one leg there, then a silent jump or a horizontal arabesque.
Lyon Ballet Opera, Beach Birds. Image credit: Agathe Poupeney
Cunningham, a proponent of pure movement, refused to ascribe meaning to his works; Beach Birds is, however, one of his most referential works, fascinating and soul-cleansing.
BIPED is very far from the visual purity of Beach Birds. Here dancers in shimmering leotards perform behind a scrim where motion capture images of dancers computer modified into stylised, floating figures by Paul Kaiser and Shelley Eshkar are projected, alternating with abstract lines and patterns.
The coexistence of live dancers and projected images creates new dimensions, peopled by the fast, continuous movement behind the scrim, with dancers materialising from the back or the wings in parallel to Gavin Bryars’s score.
Exhilarating.
One final word to the masterful lighting design by Marsha Skinner in Beach Birds and Aaron Copp in BIPED, both subtle and tremendously effective, there not to draw attention to their own cleverness, but simply to frame the dancing.
In Week 1 a work by the French choreographer Noé Soulier paid homage to Trisha Brown. In Dance Reflections Week 2 at the ROH Linbury Theatre Soulier presented a work for his own six-strong company, set to music by Bach played live on stage by the quintet Il Convito.
Noé Soulier, Close Up – 3*
Noé Soulier, Close Up © D. Perrin
A piece in three sections, parts I and III appeared inspired by martial arts, relying on strong, regular exhalations of breath, accompanied by sharp movements of throwing and kicking, that once established never really developed.
I did, however, like section II, danced upstage beneath a vast screen where live images of the dancers’ midriff were projected. Dancing in slow motion, a single dancer was later joined by another and the two engaged in a simultaneous exploration of each other’s bodies, turned into a kind of hyper-reality by the images on the screen.
The Southbank joined the festival by hosting We Wear Our Wheels With Pride, by the South African choreographer Robyn Orlin, performed by the company Moving into Dance Mophatong (MIDM).
Robyn Orlin, We Wear Our Wheels With Pride – 2*
Robyn Orlin, We Wear Our Wheels With Pride. Image: Jerôme Séron
An homage to the Zulu rickshaw drivers of apartheid South Africa, I really wanted to like this show, but I didn’t. Yes, it was driven by the extraordinary voice and presence of the singer Anelisa Stuurman, know as Annalyser; and yes, the constant colourful projections on a back screen were eye-filling and engaging.
However, lively as the six performers were, with their outlandish costumes and headdresses, there was absolutely no dance to speak of, rather quite a lot of clowning around; and much of the heavy-lifting was done by the (admittedly all too willing) audience, continuously asked to hum and chant, sway forward and back, stand up and wave their arms, and clap along to a variety of rhythms.
Soa Ratsifandrihana, G r o o v e – 0*
Dud of Dance Reflections Week 2 goes to G r o o v e, a one woman performance by the Brussels-based Malagasy Soa Ratsifandrihana. Performing in the round at the Lillian Baylis studio, mostly in near darkness, with the only sound an unnerving electronic hum, Ratsifandrihana’s point was unfathomable. She seemed lost in her own world, and so I retreated into mine, first trying not to fall asleep and then just fighting the urge to storm out.
© Teresa Guerreiro
(Banner image credit Ballet Opera Lyon, BIPED. Image credit: Agathe Poupeney)
Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels is at Sadler’s Wells, Royal Ballet and Opera, Tate Modern and Southbank Centre 12 March – 8 April 2025. Full info here