Melissa Blease reviews three new performances by Rambert – Britain’s oldest dance company
Celebrating its 90th anniversary this year, Rambert is renowned for commissioning the most exciting choreographers, composers, and designers in the field of modern dance. If you’re not familiar with the company’s fascinating history, it’s well worth researching.
However, if you haven’t seen any of their performances, I’m afraid I can’t tell you to go and see them at the Theatre Royal Bath this autumn because, at the time of writing, they will have already moved on; this trio of dances was a two-night-only stopover at a theatre that the company revisit every year. And I hate to tell you, but if you didn’t catch them this time around, you really missed out. But do not despair as the company will be performing these dances again at other venues across the country over the next few months.
Compelling, dynamic and breathtakingly beautiful on so many levels, all three performances were a captivating, reinvigorating wake-up call to the senses.
Flight – inspired by themes related to migration, including some of choreographer Malgorzata Dzierzon’s personal experiences – was a performance to which fluidity was key; there were times when I felt as though I was watching a waterfall dancing, or individual droplets of teardrops telling their own tales of why they chose to spill.
Somei Satoh and Kate Whitley’s score manages to both agitate and soothe, while a shifting backdrop reflects an ever-changing environment against which Liam Francis (whose opening solo was utterly enthralling) and Hannah Rudd lead an ensemble cast in a piece that shows how themes of diaspora and dispossession create connections that can bind people together.
In contrast to the first piece, Hydrargyrum focused on divergency rather than harmony, with a huge, slowly-revolving mirror adding drama to otherwise stark, beautifully sparse choreography (Patricia Okenwa) and literally reflecting different perspectives from which to consider the vulnerability that lies behind group dynamics and the power of solo defiance – a compelling performance indeed.
But it is perhaps Tomorrow that truly summarises what Rambert is all about today. Towards the end of last year, choreographer Lucy Guerin co-directed a production of Macbeth with Carrie Cracknell at the Young Vic. Based on this experience, Guerin was invited by Rambert to create a new work for the company and Tomorrow is the result, which can be loosely be described as a dance sequel to the Scottish play rather than a re-telling of the story. Split into two by a light beam that slowly lifts and descends throughout, one half of the stage is dominated by dancers dressed in strictly masculine, work attire (sharp suits; androgynous tailoring) while the other half is softened by more feminine, flowing contours. But that’s where any notion of gentle begins and ends.
From the start, it’s clear that we’re to be taken to discomfiting territories ruled by treachery, neurosis, psychological (and physical) torture, political power struggles and grim portents. It’s a challenging piece on many levels (not least because the familiar narrative is played out in reverse), but there’s an undercurrent of serenity beneath the robotic twitching, beauty within the frenzied tension, tranquility within the maniacal energy.
Visionary, unique, progressive; innovative, bewitching, extraordinary: Rambert is a great British institution like no other.
Rambert is on tour across the country until March 2017. To see where the company will be dancing, visit: rambert.org.uk
Main image: Johan Persson
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