Skinless Molina Dance Theatre
The Skin Walkers Renaud Wiser
Wind Mass No Matter
The strongest aspect of Molina Dance Theatre's Skinless is neither dance (weak) nor theatre (erratic): it's song. Chiara de Palo's voice, sliding between brassy belting, fulsome soprano and paper-thin whines, is superbly controlled and utterly unsettling. Her wordless song is the high point in an otherwise patchy piece that begins with two women (Laura Brera and Krista Vuori) hesitantly marking some ballet steps, and ends with a tentative tango. In between, joined by Paris Wade, there's a brain-dance (lights flash on limbs, like firing neurones), something to do with dresses, a mechanical-doll dance, a children's rhyme. It lacks coherence, which is fine for a piece apparently about schizophrenia; but also lacks interest, which isn't.
Choreographer Elena Molinaro could learn from Renaud Wiser's atmospheric The Skin Walkers. Dancers Lisa Welham and Fiona Jopp are technically top-notch, but the real lesson's in the composition. Skin Walkers is essentially three linked duets, the first two accompanied by gradual accumulations in the volume and density of sound, the third by a kind of glade of electronic birdsong. In the first, the dancers hook and tangle in slippery knots; the second has more weight and heft, while the last is more poised, the dancers finding a measure of equilibrium. The framework is simple, the detail fascinating, the result gripping.
In Saffron Dodds-Smith's Wind Mass, the four dancers wriggle pleasurably to some off-the-cuff jazz, then scatter into set pieces linked by sections where they ebb and flow about the stage like pebbles in a tide. Connections are fluid, broken as easily as they are made. Moments of tenderness - a little hug, a brief caress - seem happenstance. Sometimes the dancers scratch their heads, as if trying to remember why they're there; a few motifs - flickering hands, a ballroom hold - keep returning like fleeting memories. The company is called No Matter, which is apt: this is a nonchalant, carefree work, occasionally pierced with whimsy or wonder.
Sanjoy Roy
"You will fall!" - not the most encouraging words any dancer, or intrepid audience member, fresh from treacherous icy London roads, could wish to hear. However, from cold exterior, to a disturbingly evocative interior journey of the mind, we were bound in Skinless.
A teacher encourages her student to mark balletic steps, but sinister presences soon disrupt the equilibrium. A berating mother figure, representative of conflicting voices inside a schizophrenic mind barks orders, shouts criticisms, and articulates our protagonists' fears and doubts: In with the good, out with the bad!, Slut!, You will fall! As the teacher abandons measured classical steps, she demonstrates considerable passion in her physical expression of emotional pain. One moment she follows in fluid, child-like entrancement the commands of her inner critic, the next, she struggles in defiance, entangling herself in garments on the floor.
From a narrative on the internal journey of a schizophrenic, to a more ethereal world, The Skin Walkers was a breath of fresh-air in this evening of eclectic dance. Dressed in earthy, sinew skimming fabrics, and beautifully lit, these two performers demonstrate an organic fluidity of movement and interplay and are so expertly entangled that at points we cannot discern which extraneous limb belongs to whom. Technically brilliant and tightly controlled, this calmly considered piece gives us beautiful bodies evoking swaying seaweed, then scurrying crabs, impervious to a gathering storm.
Perhaps disadvantaged by following two companies who returned to the Resolution! stage this year, No Matter's debut showed a relative lack of experience, though inspired ambition in their execution of Wind Mass. Our four performers extrapolate the elusive, moving as though air bubbles are keeping them apart, yet in tension with one another, with "grabbing air" being a recurring motif. The execution though, lacked dynamism, with some lifts performed clumsily. I wondered whether the piece would have worked better as a duet and found the music that opened and closed reminiscent of a mobile phone advertisement.
Sam Gauntlett
Molina Dance Theatre 'Skinless'
Renaud Wiser 'The Skin Walkers'
No Matter 'Wind Mass'