National Dance Company Wales - The Everyman, Cheltenham

Thursday 24th September 2009

This is a Crackerjack review of National Dance Company Wales. Do you agree? Rate and review this event.

This is a well-regarded contemporary dance company and it was sad to see that the audience was somewhat sparse.
Those present were rewarded with two very good dance pieces and one that was, well, unusual.
The company works as a holistic entity rather than concentrating on soloists, so it would be invidious to single out any individual for particular praise.
The dancers were uniformly excellent, supple and strong in their movements.
There was very good use of the floor and strong groupings. The sense of enjoyment emanating from the stage was almost palpable.
We started with Hinterland, which showed some use of the classical vocabulary in a new and dramatic way. The music seemed to grow out of the performers themselves, as they  danced the ebb and flow of human relationships amongst a small group of people.
I thought  the strongest piece of the evening was Veil  of Stars, choreographed by the Cretan designer Andonis Foniadakakis.
The dancers were masked in gold and then masked again.
They crumbled their masks to dust in front of our eyes, perhaps inviting us to speculate on what lay beneath.
Was it reality, or was the mask itself a reality, now destroyed? A girl in a sequined cat-suit was held aloft, man-handled, played with like a doll. She was so lithe that she looked
viscous: she oozed like a streak of paint.
The company’s third offering was entitled “Lunatic” and was performed in high heels by men and women alike.
Besides dance it involved the performers talking, shouting, screaming aloud and moving amongst the audience.
The dancers looked as if they were having tremendous fun as they stamped out rhythmns rather reminiscent of Rite of Spring or pranced in their bras and suspender belts (women only, this time!)
I thought this piece self-indulgent and empty in the main however and was interested to see that it is not being taken on the company’s forthcoming tour of China.
Technically, we saw some very good work. This company’s settings, designs and lighting rigs are of a very high standard indeed and I greatly enjoyed most of the evening. Would I go  to see them again?
Reader, I would!

Avril Hemingfield

This is a Crackerjack review of National Dance Company Wales. Do you agree? Rate and review this event.