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UK Tour Review – The Times

Horror and comedy in a classy Canadian double bill

Don’t go expecting to see pointe shoes worn by this touring company from Vancouver — but do expect superb dancing

By Donald Hutera

The Dance Consortium is a collective of UK venues whose aim is to bring the best international dance to our shores. It has made a winning choice with this exceptionally fine double bill by the Vancouver-based Ballet BC, unveiled this week at Sadler’s Wells before continuing to tour to six locations — from Edinburgh to Plymouth — until mid June.

The 20 dancers of Ballet BC are classically trained, but the works they perform are very much within the contemporary field. In other words, don’t go expecting to see pointe shoes. But do go if you want to watch a superb ensemble delivering two complementary works that are, respectively, aesthetically impressive and marked by a smart, generously crowd-pleasing touch.

First up is Crystal Pite’s Frontier, a half-hour dance originally made for Nederlands Dans Theater in 2008 that the ubiquitous Canadian choreographer recently refashioned for Ballet BC. This exploration of the astronomical concept of dark matter starts with ominous quiet as a swarm of dancers, clad in black from head to toe, crawls up onto the stage from the stalls. These creepy shadow figures proceed to manipulatively interact with a handful of dancers in casual, light garb whose moves at times reach states of desperate turmoil.

Accompanied by a soundtrack of hallowed choral singing, unsettling whispers and electronics, and masterfully lit by Pite’s regular collaborator Tom Visser, Frontier is beautifully executed with a precise, taut yet whirlwind dynamic. Flirting with the more abstract reaches of the horror genre, it is also a mite gimmicky. While it didn’t move me, the craft is undeniable.

PASSING, by the Swedish dance-maker Johan Inger, is almost double the length of Pite’s work. But the time is well-spent. Set on an ash-strewn page, Inger’s wonderfully humorous, warmly human epic mingles quirky exaggerations of everyday behaviour with a wider consideration of the cycles of life. Both peculiarly funny and deeply tender, it features tap and folk steps, a hilarious mass birthing gag that later goes into reverse, live singing and feigned dying before heading into an extraordinarily poetic closing sequence that has the entire cast roving about in flesh-coloured underwear beneath a gentle snowfall. Gorgeous.


★★★★☆

The Times