DANCE REVIEW: 8 Minutes - Sadler's Wells Theatre, London.

Presented on the Sadler's Wells Theatre stage in London, this was an online streaming of the hour-long '8 Minutes' by the Alexander Whitley Dance Company

Seven dancers explore our relationship with the sun, as they, all dressed in skin-hugging black, move around the stage to Whitley's choreography. The piece has been scientifically researched with the cooperation of STFC RAL Space UK, and there is even a voice-over on a few occasions throughout the piece which imparts information sounding exactly like a university professor would do if giving a lecture. It takes 8 minutes for the sun's rays to travel the 93 million miles to earth; and that was the company's starting point.

To add to the dance and overall performance, a digitally created backdrop was utilised, and using imagery from the RAL space research as well as other scientific themes, a unique sequence of moving images was created by Tal Rosner.

I could write here exactly what happens throughout. For example at exactly 8 minutes into the piece (note the minutes) the first straw lights are used and bathe the dancers in orange, whilst everything else is still metallic, steel, black and white. At 18 minutes we have the first glimpse of the sun's rays on the screen behind, but this soon changes and morphs into an alien-looking black and white planet.

However, all the time I was watching, it wasn't the dancers which were the focus, despite them being in front of the screen. The screen grabbed my attention almost all the time, and I had to make a conscious effort to try and look at what the dancers were doing in front of it. The dancers were doing some contemporary ballet style choereography, sometimes all together and sometimes in smaller groups, usually of 2. It was very hard to connect in any way to the choreography, and it all seemed a bit samey. There was never any real sense that the dancers were in any real way connecting to the images behind them, nor that what they were doing was in any way connected to "mankind's relationship with ther sun".

Sadly for Whitley and his company, they were completely upstaged by the "star" (excuse the pun) of the show, Rosner's images. Even Daniel Wohl's original score for this piece had to take a back seat. It was contemporary and complimetary, but failed to bridge the gap between performer and backdrop.

Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 8/5/20