In sports terms, we could say that Richard Alston was playing at home, where the audience are people that we encounter in the corridors and staircases, people that watch the ensemble rehearsing above the ground, in a special room in the middle of The Place.
Richard Alston Dance Company was indeed dancing at home, inside the four halls that see the work taking shape, forming itself through the movement of dancers, surrounded by fans and admirers. To which the ensemble who filled the dark Robin Howard Dance Theatre, responded with a hum that reverberated long after inside the bodies that experienced the performance.
The first part included Brink performed to the sound of Eurasian Tango, Movements 1-5, by Ayuo. The work coreographed by Martin Lawrence (rehearsal director of the company) is the development of a shorter version of Brink, to Movements 1,2 & 5 premiered in 2007. The work comprises 4 couples, reinterpreting and deconstructing the classical tango sensual movements. Although dancing in couples, the passionate sexuality that usually tango dancers entail, was not felt here. The coreography presented another spectrum of the classical tango, the sublimated fight between male and female that gives a polite rawness of sexuality to its movement.
After a brief pause, Alert entered the stage in a rather informal way.
Alert is the raw material for a film to be directed by Deborah May, which will be online on the Hear Here! website in October. Four dancers entered the stage chating and playing around among themselves. It actually seemed like The Place in a normal weekday, when students are stretching and alongating their bodies in the staircases, and through the corridors, shouting into the locker rooms, and laughing around the school. It all started in a ramdon way, movements inciting other movements, displacements in space provoked by other bodies invading your own space, and provocations by the other, the dance beside you. Suddenly, with a light change, Wayne Parsons, one of the dancers stood alone in the center of the stage, and surprisingly, Richard Halston entered the stage from the audience, sitting in the dark far end, with both hands on his knees. Silence for a moment, and then he said: Ok!
Richard Alston Dance Company was indeed dancing at home, inside the four halls that see the work taking shape, forming itself through the movement of dancers, surrounded by fans and admirers. To which the ensemble who filled the dark Robin Howard Dance Theatre, responded with a hum that reverberated long after inside the bodies that experienced the performance.
The first part included Brink performed to the sound of Eurasian Tango, Movements 1-5, by Ayuo. The work coreographed by Martin Lawrence (rehearsal director of the company) is the development of a shorter version of Brink, to Movements 1,2 & 5 premiered in 2007. The work comprises 4 couples, reinterpreting and deconstructing the classical tango sensual movements. Although dancing in couples, the passionate sexuality that usually tango dancers entail, was not felt here. The coreography presented another spectrum of the classical tango, the sublimated fight between male and female that gives a polite rawness of sexuality to its movement.
After a brief pause, Alert entered the stage in a rather informal way.
Alert is the raw material for a film to be directed by Deborah May, which will be online on the Hear Here! website in October. Four dancers entered the stage chating and playing around among themselves. It actually seemed like The Place in a normal weekday, when students are stretching and alongating their bodies in the staircases, and through the corridors, shouting into the locker rooms, and laughing around the school. It all started in a ramdon way, movements inciting other movements, displacements in space provoked by other bodies invading your own space, and provocations by the other, the dance beside you. Suddenly, with a light change, Wayne Parsons, one of the dancers stood alone in the center of the stage, and surprisingly, Richard Halston entered the stage from the audience, sitting in the dark far end, with both hands on his knees. Silence for a moment, and then he said: Ok!
Richard started very calmly and in a gentle way, giving specific tasks and directions to Wayne that precisely performed a set of specific positions. At some point, Richard actually apologysed to Wayne, because not deciding which would be the next move, Wayne started shaking with the effort to remain in the unatural position we had been put into. Then, Richard said: 'Now, if you can remember it all, do it again...' To which wayne smiled. The improvisation that followed, based on the positions foregiven by Richard, was a delight, and Alert ended with a long silence after the dancer stopped, a silence sudenly broken by Ricard's warm and pleased: Ok! (black out)
After the interval, the second half started with Serene Beneath, followed by Blow Over performed to the sound of Philip Glass - Changing Opinion, Lightning and Open the Kingdom (Liquid Days, Part 2) - from Songs from Liquid Days. A shorter version of Blow Over premiered at Sadler's Well in 2008. A few days before of its premiere, I was fortunate enough to sit in one of the rehearsals and see the first stages of creation of this work co-comissioned by Sadler's Well and Dance Umbrella.
The music by Philip is rather moving, specially Changing Opinion, performed with two dancers Hannah Kidd and Wayne Parsons, a duet that enthrills for its simplicity. Recalling the rehearsal, at some point, Richard said to Wayne: 'It is more subtle, you almost don't touch her', and it is true, the subtlety of the elaborately structured and repetitive style of Philip Glass music, reverberating like the hum inside the room:
After the interval, the second half started with Serene Beneath, followed by Blow Over performed to the sound of Philip Glass - Changing Opinion, Lightning and Open the Kingdom (Liquid Days, Part 2) - from Songs from Liquid Days. A shorter version of Blow Over premiered at Sadler's Well in 2008. A few days before of its premiere, I was fortunate enough to sit in one of the rehearsals and see the first stages of creation of this work co-comissioned by Sadler's Well and Dance Umbrella.
The music by Philip is rather moving, specially Changing Opinion, performed with two dancers Hannah Kidd and Wayne Parsons, a duet that enthrills for its simplicity. Recalling the rehearsal, at some point, Richard said to Wayne: 'It is more subtle, you almost don't touch her', and it is true, the subtlety of the elaborately structured and repetitive style of Philip Glass music, reverberating like the hum inside the room:
Gradually
We became aware
Of a hum in the room
An electrical hum in the room
It went mmmmmm
We followed it from
Corner to corner
We pressed out ears
Against the walls
We crossed diagonals
And put our hands on the floor
It went mmmmmm
Sometimes it was
A murmur
Sometimes it was
A pulse
Sometimes it seemed
To disappear
But then with a quarter-turn
Of the head
It would roll around the sofa
A nimbus humming cloud
Mmmmmm
Maybe it's the hum
Of a calm refrigerator
Cooling on a big night
Maybe it's the hum
Of our parents' voices
Long ago in a soft light
Mmmmmm
Maybe it's the hum
Of changing opinion
Or a foreign language
In prayer
Maybe it's the mantra
Of the walls and wiring
Deep breathing
In soft air
Mmmmmm
[ Philip Glass, Changing Opinion, in Songs from Liquid Days ]
We became aware
Of a hum in the room
An electrical hum in the room
It went mmmmmm
We followed it from
Corner to corner
We pressed out ears
Against the walls
We crossed diagonals
And put our hands on the floor
It went mmmmmm
Sometimes it was
A murmur
Sometimes it was
A pulse
Sometimes it seemed
To disappear
But then with a quarter-turn
Of the head
It would roll around the sofa
A nimbus humming cloud
Mmmmmm
Maybe it's the hum
Of a calm refrigerator
Cooling on a big night
Maybe it's the hum
Of our parents' voices
Long ago in a soft light
Mmmmmm
Maybe it's the hum
Of changing opinion
Or a foreign language
In prayer
Maybe it's the mantra
Of the walls and wiring
Deep breathing
In soft air
Mmmmmm
[ Philip Glass, Changing Opinion, in Songs from Liquid Days ]
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