Côte à Côte Theatre Company The Sicilian
Maaikor Dance Company Keren'Or Pezard No.6 Heart of Ice
Joss Arnott Dance Threshold
You could see the onstage chairs in Côte à Côte's The Sicilian as an unwitting metaphor, for the piece does rather fall between several stools. On one sits a text-based theatre production of a Molière comedy about art, love and cuckoldry. Atop another stool - or two - sit various dance forms: contemporary dance, freely adapted versions of tango and charleston that embody the story's frolicsome couple-play. There are plenty of links between text, action and image: teasing tango toes, swingtime high-jinks, characters doubling up as model and muse. Despite these, and the declamatory clarity of the six actor-dancers, it's hard to get a handle on - well, on anything. Director Hannah Field and movement director Beth Loughran have some tantalising ideas, but they need more focus.
By contrast, Heart of Ice - a solo by Anastasia Kostner, choreographed by Keren'Or Pezard - has a singular focus, the only distraction being the self-consciously poetic voiceover that opens the piece. Kostner begins crouched, face shadowed as she coils and unfurls; then grows more expansive, spooling out a series of long, spiralling phrases that swell, stretch and subside. The acknowledged inspiration is Russell Maliphant's AfterLight (2009), and you can certainly see the similarity: the extended phrasing, the economy of means, the sense of spin and sigh. But the deceptively simple style is hugely demanding, and needs an exceptionally gifted performer to carry it off. Kostner and Pezard can't quite reach that aim.
There's nothing deceptively simple about Joss Arnott's Threshold, a deliberately complex showcase for seven technically accomplished female dancers. This piece, too, has a clear influence: Wayne McGregor. Threshold is full of hyperextended limbs and hyperarticulated body designs - a single position might have wrist flexed, spine tilted, head twisted, arms skewed, legs splayed and foot on a forced arch. The group compositions are not complex - it's mostly unison alternating with solos - but the piece generates a fierce if assaultive dynamism. It aims to impress its audience, and it certainly delivers.
Sanjoy Roy
The ardent notes of a tango opened Côte à Côte's The Sicilian. Unfortunately, the clumsy adaptation of Molière's play did not convey either emotion or skill. The lack of wit in the text, the hardly credible and dispassionate love affair and the male actors' uneasiness with the dancing flooded the show. Easy gimmicks, overacting, Manichean and simplistic characters, then finally a cringe-making moralistic finale, swamped it further. This was the kind of physical theatre more effective for children than an adult audience. A shame that a bit more of the delicately choreographed and gracefully delivered courtship scene in parallel with the fight between Don Pedro and the lover's friend did not come through.
The lights went down as a velvety humming brought to the stage an abstract landscape that was unveiled as the dancer, organically swirled, twisted and curled on the floor. Karen'Or Pezard draws a mental map with Heart of Ice. The plasticity of the movement and a sense of abandonment situate the piece in the realm of dreams. We accompany the dancer in her elongated rond de jambes as if we were witnessing some kind of rebirth. Oblivious to the reason of the sudden moment of self-realisation, when the cold lighting contrasts with the dancer's warmth, she captivated us in a magical instant of heart-stopping acting.
Challenging energy levels were demanded in Joss Arnott's Threshold, an enduring piece of technical finesse that brought the body to extreme hyper extensions and overarching backs, which place it on Wayne McGregor's arena. Hardcore dance which merges violent throwing of limbs into the air in sinuous lines, sharp blows against the floor and spasms of hands and head are set against a madly dissonant soundtrack. Such a solid style makes this an unnerving but addictive piece. The energy was fierce and that was enough for me but it remains to be seen if this is not a self-exhausting approach. I look forward to Arnott's next work to find out.
Marina Ribera