THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
In dance terms the earth is healing, the big guns are back on tour in the UK, and we can again enjoy their world-class artistry. NDT2, the junior company of Nederlands Dans Theater, was a frequent visitor to this country and is back, under the auspices of Dance Consortium, to tour a triple bill which fizzes with energy, ambition, grace, athleticism, and precocious technique. The company is now led by Canadian dance maker Emily Molnar.
Marco Goecke’s new piece for the company, The Big Crying (2021), was made after the death of his father and is an overpowering response to loss and grief. He also designed the costumes, and even the tops the dancers wear are meant to resemble the curtains of a hearse. With NDT, lighting and costumes are always important. They are eye-catching, dramatic and sensual, enhancing the virtuosity of this international troupe of great young performers.
The piece, which is set to a stunning score of dense, poetic, songs by Tori Amos, is frenetic, with the dancers’ moves jerky and cartoonish, speeded-up as if in a silent movie. Their tremors are framed by pin-sharp arm gestures, stunningly executed, and chests are thrust together as if trying in vain to connect. The dissonance of the movements contrasts sharply with the breathy intensity of Amos’ piano-fuelled, meditative, music and the total effect can at times be overwhelming. Goecke manages to get a direct line to our own individual emotions and repressed pain.
By contrast, next up is Simple Things (2001), from Hans van Manen, the father of Dutch modern dance, who has been involved with the main company since its founding in 1959. It is set to Haydn and Scarlatti and seems at first the epitome of simplicity, but is it? He created it specifically for 4 young dancers and it tests the limits of their pure classical technique. There are some pas de deux just for the men and some for the women. NDT generally has been great in how it has broken down gender barriers in representation of male vs female bodies on stage, without undercutting the intrinsic sensuality of what makes the bodies different. The sometime pairing of the two men here is totally refreshing too, as Emmitt Cawley is elfin like up against the tall, rangy, athlete August Palayer. Cawley is a real find and stands out across the 3 pieces.
Impasse (2020) by Swedish dance maker Johan Inger, and set to a dusky score by the French-Lebanese jazz trumpeter Ibrahim Maalouf, lightens the mood and shows off the full company in all their playful agility. It plays with ideas of peer pressure and loss of self in the group. Through a steady increase in the number of dancers on stage and a simultaneous decrease in the size of the spaces, it’s about falling in with the crowd. We see a series of successively smaller free-standing doors and horizons being narrowed, but it also illustrates our need to keep going. The sensual sweep and joie de vivre of a first trio of dancers, eventually gives way to an expansive, colourful, carnival atmosphere where everyone gets their party turn, if only for themselves.
This company is not to be missed.
