The TMC Waterside Theatre is to be found on Chorlton Street inside The Sheena Simon Campus building of The Manchester College and is the primary theatre for both the students of TMC (The Manchester College) and Arden School. It's a typical black-box theatre with raised seating, and it is certainly one of Manchester's hidden theatrical gems, since the venue is availble for outside hire too!
Today I was there to watch the second year students on the Arden Schools BA(hons) Dance And Performance course perform two works. Before the interval we were shown a devised piece called 'Stuck' which was performed by a small section of the year. Originally a shorter piece of site-specific dance performed earlier this school year at Whitworth Art Gallery, the piece has now been developed further and adapted and lengthened for a theatrical presentation.
8 dancers explored the idea of being 'stuck' behind the screen of their mobile phones. A modern phenomenon indeed, and it is absolutely an everyday occurance for me to have to move out of the way of someone walking along the pavement with their eyes glued to a screen and not what is around them. Train carriages, buses, everywhere you look (that is if you manage to take your head away from your phone) you will see young people - and sometimes even more elderly ones; those who actually ought to know better - immersed in their own little worlds of computerised communication. I don't own a mobile phone. I even wish that we didn't have to rely on computers as much as we do. And so for me, watching these 8 dancers, people who will undoubtedly be those described above when not in lessons or performing, to devise a piece about the dangers and inherent difficulties of continual mobile phone usage and reliance, was quite surprising. I wonder if now they have performed this piece they will still go back to texting, youtubing, instagramming, etc etc etc with the same zeal and to the same extent. - sadly the answer will more than probably be yes.
After a short interval and the title piece of the showcase, Romeo And Juliet. Taking the barest outline of the famous story, this was a reimagined dance presentation which utilised all the different dance genres that the year has thus far leant and it is also their first ensemble performance. With dances choreographed by the tutors in the various disciplines, Megan Elliott, Sandro Franchini, Lee Lomas, Ben Manuel, Nicola Rowell, Sarah Sanabria, and Tomas Simon, there was a little of everything in this piece except for classical ballet.
Dressed in black work-out gear, it felt much more like I was waching a rehearsal than a performance. The only concession to this was that their shoes and socks were of different colours. Blue for the Montagues and red for The Capulets. Was this a deliberate attempt at trying to make a modern and local cultural reference to Manchester's two football teams? The story was outlined well, with the use of little prompts to the story being written on a chalk board (as well as a hashtag comment - unsure of the relevance or need for that). However, I did not see or understand how Romeo committed suicide, and again I was at a loss to understand how Juliet kills herself too on discovering Romeo's dead body. The end needed some signposting through the dance / movement as to how this was possible. I saw Juliet take some poison from a rose for her fake death, but more than that the end was very unclear.
Both pieces showed a high level of maturity, commitment and ability, and also inclusiveness. It was quite a surprise for me to come across a young male dancer, Joseph Powell-Main, in a wheelchair and on crutches who was so agile and so much an integral part of the both routines. He played Romeo opposite Rita Nunes Castro De Sousa's Juliet. Some lovely lifts with some quite difficult moves were executed by the whole company with seeming ease, and both pieces were very enjoyable. High energy, focused and meaningful choreography in both pieces matched by a group of students more than willing to take up the gauntlet and run with it. It will undoubtedly have been a huge learning curve for them all, and the experience will have made them grow a sperformers, and that is highly commendable. Congratulations to all, and I look forward to seeing your next public presentation.
Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 3/5/19
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