This company is only a couple of years old and, having missed their visit last year, an unknown quantity for me. But from the first moments of the opening piece, Richard Wherlock’s S(c)ent, it was clear that we were watching a class act. The ten dancers — a very good looking bunch — are gifted technically and musically, and brought beauty and drama to this piece.
It’s set to two movements from Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony, the first movement changing suddenly back and forth between storm and limpid calm. Wherlock says he was fascinated to hear how artificial aromas are produced, and their evocative power and from there he went on to explore how one person interprets the sensory signals that another emits. It’s hard to relate this to what we see but this is a very beautiful series of duets for the company of ten dancers, punctuated here and there by other groupings, and beautifully lit — as are all but one of the works in this programme — by Paul Taylor.
Jamie Thomson’s .com together contrasts the sterility of cyber relationships with the warmth and tenderness of the real thing. It’s an abstract celebration of the power of real human contact over the isolation of life lived at a virtual level, and is performed with great intensity.
Light Into Shade is a second offering from Richard Wherlock, and is a long and demanding duet, very fluid and physical with Benoit Egloff and Pascaline di Fazio rising well to the challenge. Adrift in Softness has its central character floating between different states of consciousness, allowing thoughts and memories to float in and out of mind.
After the second interval came In C Sharp Minor (pictured) by the Italian choreographer Davide Bombana. The reference is to Beethoven’s Quartet opus 131 arranged for string orchestra, on which the dances are built. It’s a long work which successfully puts over the depth of the music.
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