Dancing Times - Features
Miguel Angel Zotto’s Buenos Aires Tango at the Peacock Theatre:
Written by Zoë Anderson
I never thought I would say this: the best scene in Buenos Aires Tango is one with taped music. The latest show by dancer Miguel Angel Zotto has a mix of live and recorded music, dramatic scenes and simple dancing. The simplest, and loveliest, is a nostalgic scene with Zotto and his partners dancing to a series of classic, crackly recordings. This is the richest dancing of the night, showing off period style in a brilliant variety of rhythms. In the wittiest of these numbers, Zotto and his partner dance along the edge of the stage, here and there dipping a foot over the brink. It’s fast, stylish and sophisticated dancing.
Bounce in Insane in the Brain:
Written by Zoë Anderson
Coming from a music culture with built-in swagger, hip hop should be good at rebellion against authority. For their latest show, the Swedish street dance company Bounce has adapted One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. But the dancers’ hearts seem less in the story of psychiatric patients’ revolt than in the feelgood numbers they have managed to squeeze into the main plot.
Gravity and Levity in Shift:
Written by Zoë Anderson
Shift, by aerialist company Gravity and Levity, starts by explaining what it isn’t. “None of that new circus here,” says dancer Guy Adams, in tones of utter scorn. “No Lycra, no sequins, no unitards. This is high art.”
Peter and the Wolf at the Hackney Empire:
Written by Gerald Dowler
Everything should have worked with this production of Peter and the Wolf: it is admirably designed and well costumed, the musicians are from the Philharmonia Orchestra no less and it has Brian Blessed as the predictably larger-than-life narrator. However, as a danced piece, it falls short. Not that anything is bad, just not quite good enough, and too often I found myself being slightly disappointed when I should have been enchanted.
Jah Wobble-Chinese Dub at Bush Hall:
Written by Zoë Anderson
With the Olympics looming, cultural exchanges with China are everywhere. Jah Wobble-Chinese Dub cheerfully crams British musicians, Chinese dancers and singers onto the small stage of the rock and pop venue, Bush Hall in West London. The atmosphere is charmingly laid back. Traditional dancers from Hangzhou step carefully over the cables of Jah Wobble’s bass guitar, or join an encore with sweetly goofy western steps. There’s even room for Chinese opera spectacle, with masked dancers whirling to a mix of dub and folk music.
Matthew Bourne's Dorian Gray:
Written by Jonathan Gray
Matthew Bourne’s dance works have undoubted popular appeal, and his latest production, a version of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray is no exception. The show broke box office records when it was premiered at the Edinburgh International Festival and its season at Sadler’s Wells from September 2-14 was completely sold out. I saw Dorian Gray at Sadler’s Wells on September 12, and the theatre was packed with an audience very different from the usual crowd of contemporary dance enthusiasts – here were people, young and old, buzzingly eager to see Bourne’s latest creation and were just the sort of audience you are more likely to see at the National Theatre or at a West End musical. And, because of Dorian Gray’s subject matter, it was also noticeably gay. It is wonderful that Bourne can reach out and attract new audiences like this to dance, but I wish they could have had the opportunity to see something better than the tedious work on offer.
Nuevo Ballet Espagnol at the Preacock Theatre:
Written by Katie Gregory
Angel Rojas and Carlos Rodriguez are natural partners. Having jointly won the title of Most Outstanding Dancer at the National Spanish and Flamenco Dance Competition in 1994, the Madrid-born pair founded Nuevo Ballet Español the following year, and the have since toured a host of productions featuring their unique approach to Spanish and flamenco dance.
21st Festival International de ballet de la Havana:
Written by Margaret Willis
Imagine an animated breakfast table where terpsichorean topics are discussed vigorously in five different languages at the same time. That’s the festival of dance in Cuba. Aficionados from around the world are invited to spend ten dance-filled days in the heart of this Caribbean island where poverty is rampant and recent hurricane damage is very much in evidence. Yet, every two years, money is found to transcend the mundane and bring ethereal beauty to the fore, to show off one of the country’s greatest treasures – the Ballet Nacional de Cuba (BNC) – which celebrates its 60th anniversary this year.
