This year's 'Dance With US', which originally started as a sharing of skills and ideas between The Salford University Dance programme and The Bodiography Dance Company in Pittsburgh, USA, has grown and morphed into a whole evening of local young and emerging dance companies sharing expertise, co-creating, and performing for not just each other but for the public as well. A whole evening devoted to contemporary dance from and by aspiring local companies, the students, and our friends from across the pond.
This evening's programme had eight pieces, the first of which was performed in the round in the building's atrium, before we all moved into the theatre for the remainder of the performances. This piece was called. 'A Moment' and was performed by Josh Wild and Jack Hilton of Hawk Dance Theatre. There was a nice connection and fluidity between the two dancers, as this moment of smaller moments took place before us. Each moment being open to our own interpretation, but certainly it became more homo-erotic as the 'moment' progressed. Their performance was made to look effortless although we know it certainly wasn't: it was graceful if not at times a little repetitive; and certainly a better awareness of the size of the performance space wouldn't have gone amiss. A strong start to the evening nevertheless.
The first piece in the theatre was 'Really?!', and was also the first piece choreographed by Maria Caruso, principal of the Pittsburgh Bodiography company. The piece showcased a couple of her professional dancers dancing alongside Salford university students. And if I were to be honest, I couldn't tell which were which! Next came a slightly longer and more dramatic piece, danced one assumes, by Salford students, called 'Restlessness'. The piece had some nice lines and patterns, and I enjoyed the use of umbrellas. The mood changes and group configuratioons were well thought-through, and even though we had no idea of the original narratve intent, we could still put a story to it.
'Femme' came next, which was a pastiche or even 'homage' to the 1960s. The dancers, dressed in mini-dresses gave a semi-comedic, sexy, and at times quite balletic dance to music by Verisoni Particulari, which was, as the programme notes describes, "an expression of femininity, confidence and a complete understanding and appreciation of one's self". Danced by members of Emergence Dance, these talented young ladies really languished and delighted in this piece. They really were the cats' pyjamas!
Following on from this was my favourite piece of the evening. I do seem to remember seeing either this piece or an earlier version of it a while ago, and since the work started life in 2012, this is highly possible. Called 'Fractured And Rebuilt', using Ludivico Einaudi's music, and choreographed by Marie Caruso, this had the strongest and most visually intersting moves, and was the piece where the dancers were all in-sync, all the time. All legs or arms were all at the same height and all moved in complete unison when they should have done. Very impressive. It was a visually interesting and polished performance with a strong ending.
'An Uncomfortable Word' came next on the programme, and was a solo piece of dance-theatre. Part mime, part movement, Emma Hopley's self-choreographed piece took some of the speech made by Emma Watson to the UN in 2014, and created her own unique response to it. Exploring the continued fight for gender equality, it was a highly personal and perhaps a little too self-absorbed a piece, but her technique was flawless.
The final piece befoe the interval was a short work was the final Bodiography performance, 'Break The Verse'. using a specially commissioned piece of muisc by composer Austin Beckman, Caruso has created a 'movement tapestry for the intricacies of the soundscape'. Some nice unison and group work, with a slower more reflective denouement, which finished as they started.
The final piece this evening was a full-length work from local company Coalesce Dance Theatre, titled 'The Cocoon'. It was Coalesce's first lengthy work and was danced and choreographed by Fern Wareham, Rachel Maffei, Jemma Stein, Rebecca Callow and Jenna Nathan. The performers were talneted and multi-disciplinarians, performing in a style which fuses modern theatrical performance practice with dance. Cocoon, in their own words, is a piece which explores and glorifies femininity: a humorous, poignant and empowering female journey. The piece uses voice-over, spoken word, dance and even gymnastics, and the moves were interesting and diverse. The whole did feel somewhat fragmented though, almost as if a whole bunch of ideas were thrown into the mix and then were performed one after the other without any real connection or relevance with and to each other. The dancers' breathing techniques however must be highly trained since their voices, when speaking, were clear and strong, despite some energetic dancing or being tumbled upside down.
The whole evening had an experimental feel to it; but what better way to try something new and explore collaborative ideas and processes than within the safe and supportive environment of the university. I am told that some of the choreographies this evening were devised and rehearsed in just 10 hours, which is, in itself, an amazing achievement, and so if they were, as some were, just a little rough around the edges then this is completely understandable and forgiveable. Dance,.like all performance art forms, doesn't stay still, and it is only with young, enthusiastic and talented ensembles such as those showcased this evening, can there be any hope of taking Dance forward into the next generations.
Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 10/3/20
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