When artistic Director Ann Sholem announced the new name for her company National Dance Company Wales, she proclaimed ‘the Diversion is over - the road ahead is clear’.Now she is about to road-test the new identity as the unique brand of contemporary dance starts its international tour. The aim of the name change was to signify after a quarter of a century how integral the company has become to the arts scene in Wales -and in their first outing since the rechristening we get to see a showcase of what they can do. The triple-bill draws on a wide range of references and reinforces the eclecticism of the company. First up is ‘Hinterland’, choreographed by Roy Campbell-Moore and is a nod to Wales’s rich cultural heritage. “I was invited to create a short gala piece for the opening of Wales Millennium Centre five years ago and I worked with a selection of music from Alun Hoddinott’s Welsh Dance Suite”, says Campbell-Moore. “Alun was delighted with the work and wanted me to choreograph a ballet for him. He was going to write a completely new piece for me and we were talking about the theme. We were talking about Shakespeare, Cervantes; a literary theme. Very sadly, he died before we could begin work on the piece.” The resulting piece is celebratory in tone, but with darker layers. This is how Campbell-Moore characterises it: “There’s romance in it, there’s anxiety, there’s being peaceful, there’s fun, there’s playfulness. What we see is a wonderful organic flow between the characters where they celebrate their uniqueness as human beings.” Next up is ‘Veil of Stars’ by Andonis Foniadakis, which is truly stunning. It opens with a carpet of smoke that levitates across the stage like a giant sheepskin rug, followed by a dancer, insect-like, on all fours. The powerful visual impact hits you and keeps on hitting you. The dancers, dressed in disco-harlequin chic and looking like the late, great performance artist Leigh Bowery in their glittering masks, alternate between aggression and fragility. “My main concern is to reach the subconscious of an audience and how they deal with the different information”, says Foniadakis. “There is a strange relationship between characters, a story without being a precise story, a sensation of the universe and, in a theatrical sense, creating a space beyond purely time and space. In choreography, we play with time and space but in this particular creation I like to create a special universe that my choreography would fit in.” The final piece is the aptly-titled ‘Lunatic’. It opens with the sounds and spotlights of a war air raid with the dancers running on in pyjamas, but sleep is off the agenda as the dancers, who are invariably as mute as catwalk models, shout out at the audience, even roaming the stalls massaging our shoulders. Then proceedings turn stranger still as one of the male dancers strides the stage in stockings and high heels with a French bistro chair in hand and performs a camp comedy version of Liza Minnelli’s iconic turn in Cabaret, only to be interrupted by a Madonna doppelgänger circa the Jean Paul Gaultier conical bra phase who wants a diva scrap for the limelight. The look is the Forties glamour Gaultier so expertly aped as the dancers whirl and loop around each other like vines, urgent but tender, tired yet full of life. The piece’s much-respected choreographer Nigel Charnock decided on the ‘Lunatic’ title “because it is to do with dreams and nightmares and the moon – it is a kind of madness”. He also feels it reflects the rest of his output. “To the public all my work looks, not chaotic, but mad, a little bit lunatic. People say, ‘I didn’t know what was going to happen next, what you were going to do next’.” This evening of dance is best enjoyed when we stop worrying about what everything means and enjoy watching beautiful bodies making beautiful shapes in a wonderfully diverse show. National Dance Company Wales’s international tour begins September 23 and continues until November 21 with performances in Wales at Venue Cymru, September 29; Theatr Hafren, Newtown, October 22, 23 and Wales Millennium Centre, November 3, 4. For further details visit www.ndcwales.co.uk |
| National Dance Company Wales web site: www.ndcwales.co.uk |
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Sunday, October 4, 2009 |
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