Mapping 4D Consequences
Melanda Dance Company Friendly Fire
Jessica Hurst & Caroline Griffiths Weave
Performing is all about communication, and that's the theme of Sarah Levinsky and Wendy Hubbard's Consequences. We start with a stage crowded with ideas and images - voices, recollections and movements all overlapping - and it's not until the cast get out of their own heads and start paying attention to each other that things get interesting. Two actors start throwing out oblique tasks for the three dancers: 'The extremely oily chain on a 1950s bicycle gets caught'; 'Given the chance to stop time you squander the opportunity', and it's more than clever charades, it's an entertaining exposition on the gaping chasm between words and actions.
It's a great compliment to say that Melanda Dance Company's Friendly Fire didn't feel anything like as long as the billed forty minutes. A collection of episodes that deal with simple dynamics between couples and groups, the most interest was in the duets - one meeting that's almost spiritual in its beatific detachment, another much more earthy and needy, where a girl who's all nervous ticks only finds peace in the arms of her man (although the deep stillness soon turns to desperate clinging, which doesn't bode well). The only complaint is that ultimately, Friendly Fire is a little too slight.
Jessica Hurst and Caroline Griffiths' Weave is inspired by the work of Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota. Those unfamiliar with Shiota's work won't get the visuals here, but they will be able to peer into its world of dreams and nightmares. The company of five appear with wide unseeing eyes and severe white dresses, like inpatients or cult members, not just trapped in this space, but seemingly in their own minds and bodies. To disjointed beats their limbs warp into asymmetry and awkward angles and there's some strong and committed dancing, but it's the crazed focus that gets you most, eyes fixed upwards in horror and rapture at private demons, gods and saviours (we hope).
Lyndsey Winship
Consequences was a piece based on communication, showing the gap between dance and dialogue. Two actors told their stories, with Lucy Ellinson, striking, in her way of telling her story as if the audience was actually part of the action. In comparison, the dancing wasn't as engaging, and felt emotionally isolated from the narrative. That may have been the point, but the movement still needed more purpose. The work gained ground when the actors threw obscure statements out for the dancers to interpret, finally giving a synergy between the story and dance. At the end of it, the trio of dancers found the right intention and physical sizzle which was missing at the beginning
Simple, seamless and satisfying: three fitting words for Friendly Fire. The piece took us through four scenes that explored different relationships between people, without theatricality or artifice. Choreographer Anna Melander's strength was in the duets, which featured strong emotional and physical connections between her dancers that were quite beautiful to watch. She also structured the piece very efficiently with scenes that flowed easily from one to the other. Moments of solace, neurosis, need and sultriness resulted in some strong images. However, further development would have helped this piece find a stronger voice.
Intense, surreal and nightmarish, Weave felt like being caught in an asylum with five schizophrenics in white robes. Choreographers Jessica Hurst and Caroline Griffiths gave us angular shapes and inventive phrases set to pulsating techno music. The movement was demanding, but the five female performers met the challenge and danced with strength, confidence and whole-hearted commitment. At one point, balletic movement by the dancers dressed in white conjured up an image of what Giselle going mad in 2010 would look like. Audiences who don't know Chiharu Shiota's work might not understand the references, but the visual images, dancing and gutsiness of this work stood out and grabbed you.
Jobina Bardai
Mapping 4D, Consequences
Melanda Dance Company, Friendly Fire
Jessica Hurst & Caroline Griffiths, Weave