Quintet Louise Bennett
Solo in Purgatorio Nicola Monaco
All for a Few Udifydance Company
Within the Robin Howard Dance Theatre the stage was beautifully set with fabric sculptures by artist Aishleen Lester, promising a creative, mystical first dance incorporating four female dancers and the art work. Sadly this was not the case, in Louise Bennett's Quintet the sculptures seemed largely irrelevant to the piece, acting at best as a decorative back-drop and at worst preventing the dancers from having full use of the stage. Bennett presents four prepossessing girls extending their limbs in a languid, swirling sea of arabesques and high leg kicks to a classical soundtrack. Classically trained, the dancers demonstrate good technique but lack a tangible connection with each other, the music or even the audience, meaning the stock movement vocabulary quickly becomes uninteresting.
A more intense performance was given by dancer and choreographer Nicola Monaco in his work Solo in Purgatorio, a powerful yet unfortunately inconsistent piece exploring the sin of Wrath. A forceful start sees Monaco trapped in a shaft of light, convulsions turn into body locking as he tries to escape, gasping for air in time to the metallic, rhythmic music. However, the momentum is lost as the lights are turned up, the music segues into an up-beat dance track and Monaco's on stage contortions, in his costume of transparent plastic trousers, suddenly become more distracting than thought provoking. Monaco's choreography is promising but his vision sadly unrealised.
Where Monaco's piece conceptually overreached, Udifydance Company's work is polished and effective; dancing simply for the love of dancing. With no discernable greater meaning, All for a Few is slick and coherent. Four unique dancers swiftly move in interchanging groups, beautifully in sync. Returning motifs highlight moments of unison in this fluid, intriguing work, the dancers pause, seeming almost unsure of what has just happened, take cue from each other and move again. Insular and intense the dancers are mesmerising to watch - creators Chay Burrows and Christopher Reynolds, choreographers to watch.
Jennifer Teale
Choreographer Louise Bennett's Quintet offers us four long-haired, long-limbed and creamy-skinned nymphs dancing to Arnold Bax's lyrical Harp Quintet. Clad in white t-shirts, bright red shorts and flesh-toned slippers, the young cast share the stage with Aishleen Lester's shiny, sparkly fabric sculptures. It's post-holiday décor - or does that crumpled scarlet sash in the centre of a small grove of white tubes have a slightly unnerving, membranous quality? Bennett's swirly-girly balleticism is a useful exercise for these budding performers, but I wonder if they always understand why they make these particular steps and shapes. All save one dance with a peculiarly distracted air, at once blank and affected.
Nicola Monaco was for six years a member of Euro-darling Emio Greco's company, and it shows in Solo in Purgatorio. The piece is, in fact, derived from material he made for one of Greco's full-length productions. Its theme is wrath. Bare-chested, slippered (again) and wearing opaque rubber trousers, Monaco is a highly adept dancer with a strong, alert and sometimes challenging presence. To a clubby, industrial throb he swipes and strains inside two confining squares of overhead light, eventually released into a wider space in which slippery, repetitive moves reference bodypopping and boxing. Increasingly the black bandages enwrapping his hands stain his body and face. Self-indulgences aside, drops from states of heightened physical tension are used by Monaco to push him in new directions. Credit this fidgety work for trying to think big.
I'm still trying to get a handle on the elusive strengths of Chichester-based Udifydance Company's All for a Few. Louise Flood, Hannah Martin and co-choreographers Chay Burrows and Christopher Reynolds dance purposefully to Burrows' own portentously rumbling score. In various combinations this quartet makes, measures and breaks connections. The dancing is more emphatic than polished, but the rough, glancing quality feels deliberate. I'd be glad to see more of their work.
Donald Hutera
Louise Bennett 'Quintet'
Nicola Monaco 'Solo in Purgatorio'
Udifydance Company 'All for a Few'