| Audience Acclaim for First Night of 2011 Tour |
National Dance Company Wales |
| By Singing Light/ Quixoteland , Aberystwyth Arts Centre , January 31, 2011 |
National Dance Company Wales' year has a firm rhythm to it. A Wales, England and Ireland tour is followed by international appearances, then an opportunity for the artists to pursue individual work and into preparation for a new addition to the repertoire. It is apparently due to Aberystwyth's sheer niceness that the rapturous Ceredigion audience gets to see the first performance. So fixed is the timetable that this review is being written one year to the day after the 2010 tour. The 2011 tour comprises three works. “Romance Inverse” plays Cardiff in March (see review 31 January 2010) along with “By Singing Light.” The third piece “Quixoteland”, choreographed by Gustavo Ramirez Sansano, is an exuberant and joyful revisit to music composed by Leon Minkus in 1869. High romantic strings accompany a cowled figure on stage. Another cowled dancer appears high up near the back of Aberystwyth's seating. A quartet of women dancers includes some witty hip-swivelling points of choreography. There is a Cupid with wings and a kind of nappy who plants his arrows in the backs of his victims. There are conquistador-style helmets, wine is offered, celebrations are energetic. The set, both remarkable and ambitious, comprises eight twenty foot high lances and a clockwork-driven set of windmill sails. Minkus' music over thirty minutes moves from the lush to the effervescent. “By Singing Light” choreographed by Stephen Petronio is in contrast less immediately accessible. A closer, more intimate choreography accompanies the score commissioned from Son Lux. Over twenty-five minutes it is at times florid, at times sonorous, at times accompanied by a choir, at times with a solo vocalist of a Nico-like sombreness. In the view of a professional musician it is a very considerable musical accomplishment in its own right. Audiences in Cardiff and Swansea will have the added benefit of live singing from BBC National Chorus of Wales. As for the company National it is by name, international by standards of achievement. ....... National Dance tours Wales, Ireland & England until June including Swansea, Mold and Milford Haven |
Reviewed by: Adam Somerset |
This review has been read 2139 times There are 15 other reviews of productions with this title in our database:
|
