The astonishingly wealthy programme of the primary Dance Reflections competition, unfold throughout three main London venues, is a chance not solely to see a spread of what you may name non-classical dance, however to catch cross-currents between artists, types and occasions. Its opening night time paired a model new creation with an iconic work from 1979.
Modern dancer Brigel Gjoka and “summary b-boy” Rauf “RubberLegz” Yasit first met as performers in William Forsythe’s superlative Quiet Night of Dance, and their duet Neighbours echoes its trajectory: a stark opening part, dense with movement however carried out in plain garments and unadorned by music, offers approach to extra theatrically lit, dressed and accompanied dances, flush with moods and meanings. It’s like seeing the work’s bones first, and solely then its flesh.
The bones, right here, should not solely the 2 distinctive performers – Gjoka each poised and fleet, Yasit slipping by way of the ribbony knots of his personal limbs – but additionally the outstanding element of their interplay: little parries and feints, locks and tugs and weaves. When it arrives, the spellbinding music (performed reside by Ruşan Filiztek) layers Turkic drones, chants and beats over the dance, and instantly we not solely see the bodily construction of this specific encounter, however appear to sense a spot, folks, histories which are elusive, however potent.
Lucinda Childs’ now basic Dance (carried out right here by the Lyon Opera Ballet) was made in an period when programs idea and structuralism have been within the zeitgeist – and it exhibits. The work is all about composition: the relation of 1 aspect to a different, the formation of complexity from simplicity. Wearing celestial white, the dancers use a restricted lexicon all through – little greater than step, hop, skip and leap – balletically styled, and carried out with out have an effect on or affectation. In part one, they skim backward and forward throughout the stage. In part two, a soloist travels both in a straight line, or in a circle. In part three, the teams sq. up, or do diagonals.
Round, in entrance and above them, a reshot model of Sol LeWitt’s unique movie of the work multiplies the dancing figures in addition to their angle and scale. It’s all of a chunk with Philip Glass’s music: steps, photographs, our bodies and sounds refracted into cosmic harmonics that echo within the thoughts lengthy after the efficiency is over.
The Dance Reflections competition continues at Sadler’s Wells, the Royal
Opera Home and Tate Fashionable till 23 March.
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