REVIEW: This Is Rambert, Newcastle Theatre Royal
Dance company's centenary visit
It was a fleeting visit from Rambert on its 100th anniversary tour – just two performances at the Theatre Royal which the famous company has lit up many times over the years.
And it wasn’t a parade of greatest hits, which was a shame perhaps for those with never-to-be-forgotten favourites.
“I didn’t want to look back, I wanted to define who we are today,” explains artistic director Benoit Swan Pouffer in the giant souvenir programme.
“This programme is called This is Rambert because it captures this moment in time.
“It’s about living, evolving art, not a museum of past achievements. It shows our dancers, collaborators and the energy of where we are now.”
There was no doubting the energy. Rambert dancers – including Hannah Hernandez who trained at Dance City in Newcastle - could shame the couch potato tendencies of a gazelle. They’re always in motion or ready to spring and it’s wonderful to watch.
Where we are now, I’d say, judging by this centenary choice, is a place that’s edgy, uncertain, with under-surface tension ready to break out.
It was there in the opener (a change in the running order suggested by the programme), In Crimson, by director-choreographers Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber whose collaborative background in dance, opera, theatre and film was evident in this new Jerwood Commission for Rambert.
The ‘reimagining’ of a piece called Fugue in Crimson, for the Batsheva Ensemble in Tel Aviv where both choreographers once worked, had seven dancers, supposedly “lost in a state of passion”, performing in front of a red curtain and with a piano prominently positioned on stage.
It was a play-without-words (but with occasional grunts and some fab singing) with performers emerging from behind the curtain like eavesdroppers before joining in a sequence of solos, duets and ensemble pieces.
Were we back stage, Noises Off style, or front-of-stage?
It was ambiguous but the emotional pull tugged us hither and thither and all to an eclectic soundtrack comprising Bach, Bizet, an original piano composition by Yonatan Daskal and that sultry rendition of La Solitude sung by multi-talented dancer Naya Lovell posing on the piano.
Next up was the mesmerising Hop(e)storm, a collaboration by Rambert and French dance collective (La)Horde which saw dancers become cogs in a machine driven by Pierre Aviat’s pounding composition.
It was a modern take on an old style dance form, the lindy hop of the 1920s (the clue’s in the bracketed title) with its breathtaking lifts and twirls, although a sudden blast of Elvis proved a red herring.
This was not to be a tribute in the style of Rambert’s famous homage to The Rolling Stones. There was, however, so much to enjoy - the energy, the precision, the fluidity of movement. I could have watched forever.
Finally there was Gallery Of Consequence by Dutch choreographer Emma Evelein who put everything you’ll see in a modern airport (bar the planes) into a work of kaleidoscopic colour and movement.
On the back wall: the rolling list of flight departures (just one of those things adding stress to modern life); in front of it the staff and passengers, hurrying, strolling, waiting, chatting and – in one instance – submitting to a pre-flight nervous breakdown.
The piece should perhaps have come with a complementary sickbag.
Sound design, attributed to Raven Bush, featured all sorts, mostly music but occasionally the dancers playing check-in staff would mime to amplified snatches of gossip.
It was impressive, no doubt, with the eye drawn this way and that as umpteen mini-dramas unfolded in double quick time. As an advertisement for a staycation, it was perfect.
Rambert, though, are off overseas now but will be back in the UK at the Festival Theatre, Edinburgh (July 2-4), The Lowry, Salford (July 7-9) and the Theatre Royal, Norwich (July 14, 15).