By Hildy Harland
Last night I was invited back to Darlington Hippodrome for Fourteen Days by The Ballet Boyz. I haven’t seen this company before but I have heard of them as they are a pretty high profile and well established company which was founded back in 2000 and are now in their 18th year. This show in particular was a series of short works created by a spattering of well known choreographers including Strictly’s very own Craig Revel-Hallwood.
The 1hr 40 minute show was made up of not one or two but five different pieces. Each created by different choreographers, some used a full cast others featured duos or just part of the company dancers. As you would imagine each piece had it’s differences however the lack of any kind of set or ‘change of scene helped to thread the pieces together. I was a little disappointed that the programme did not really enlighten the reader to the theme/intention behind the works and would have loved to read even just a short sentence on each piece. I understand it is nice to go into something and have your own idea of what the piece means to you or says to you however I do like to read about what the actual intention of the work is too. After much searching online and pawing through the programme for the third time I finally found the one and only mention of the theme of balance. Guys I think you need to re-think the info for your programmes!
The first piece The Title Is In The Text choreographed by Javier De Frutos was a fantastic piece of work to watch. There was a huge see-saw in the middle of the stage where all of the attention firmly focused throughout the piece so obviously when trying to figure out the intentions behind this piece I immediately thought of an exploration of balance. The dancers seemed like they were constantly achieving and failing, at times grappling for control over the see-saw as well as moments of real team work where the group come together to create some wonderful shapes and balances. The piece did have a bit of a political over tone too with the use of the spoken text which gave the image of the need/fight for balance within, what is at the moment a very unstable or unbalanced time particularly for Britain but also the world.
Human Animal was the next piece to grace the stage, it’s most striking features being the floral shirt/underpants costume combo and the cast of prancing men in unison, there was a less obvious intention to this piece, it seemed to have a relentless quality. I have made an assumption from the title that the balance explored within this piece is between the human and animal within us all but I am not all that sure that is what the piece is about, again I had nothing to really compare my opinion to. It kind of reminded me of a flock of birds or a heard of antelope clinging together moving as one with a leader and the rest following in it’s hierarchical order.
US choreographed by Christopher Wheeldon was the third of the five works and to be honest was my favourite out of them all. It was a beautifully, delicate yet strong duet, the fluidity of movement and emotion injected into every single motion of their bodies was simply beautiful. This piece to me portrayed the balance within a close relationship between two people. Everything about this work was watchable, there was a simplistic beauty about everything from the costume to the lighting, music and starkness of the stage. The fluent movement explored the theme of balance with seamless lifts and entangled bodies taking risks and supporting each other seeming to search for their balance as one entity.
Craig Revel Horwood was not a choreographer I ever expected to see on the contemporary dance scene however here he is with his piece The Indicator Line . I have to admit straight away that this was my least favourite work of the evening. His take on a mixture between clog dancing and west-side story-like testosterone fuelled battle was not my cup of tea at all. The movement was very reminiscent of early contemporary/freestyle movement within musicals of the 50’s/60’s and seemed somewhat old hat in comparison to the work surrounding it. Lord knows I love the theatrical but for some reason this piece just seemed not to fit in with the cast of amazing dancers, it had a very brash and bawdy style to it which seemed all show and very much surface emotion. The fact that it was presented next to very different works made this more obvious. Perhaps if I had seen this work as a piece on it’s own I may have had a slightly different opinion, but if you like your dance with more of a west-end tinge maybe this is the piece for you!
Fallen by Russel Maliphent was the final watch of the evening. Originally created back in 2013 this work has been revived as the finalé of Fourteen Days. I also really enjoyed this piece it’s flawless lifts and smooth fluid contact work was wonderful to watch. It felt like this piece was stripped bare in comparison to the others, the back curtain of the stage was removed to reveal the bare brick wall at the back which gave a feeling of harshness.
All in all I really enjoyed more than half of what was on offer from BalletBoyz however my companion and I mentioned straight away that although we understand they are an all male cast company the absence of female choreographers was very apparent and disappointing. I do want to however say how amazing the cast of dancers were, their spectacular technique and diversity as a body of dancers was wonderful to watch and I believe it is their interpretation of the choreography that really makes the company so successful. It is also really nice to see some Contemporary dance moving into larger theatres and becoming more popular. I can’t wait to see more contemporary dance at Darlington Hippodrome!
Dance Culture North East 