Symbiosis: Andonis Foniadakis (choreography), Ilan Eshkeri (music).
Goat: Ben Duke (choreography), Yshani Perinpanayagam (music direction).
Symbiosis: Luke Ahmet, Miguel Altunaga, Lucy Balfour, Josh Barwick, Daniel Davidson, Edit Domosziai, Liam Francis, Juan Gil, Brenda Lee Grech, Sharia Johnson, Vanessa King, Nancy Nerantzi, Adam Park, Stephen Quildan, Hannah Rudd, Pierre Tappon, Simone Damberg Wurtz, (dancers). Chris Tombling, Juliet Snell (violin), Nic Pendlebury (viola), Joy Hawley (cello), Alice Kent (bass), Rebecca Larsen (flute), Joseph Sanders (oboe/cor anglais), Stuart King (clarinet), Philip Gibbon (bassoon), Kevin Elliott (horn), Bill Cooper (trumpet), Simon Baker (trombone), Yshani Perinpanayagam (piano), Robert Millet (percussion).
Goat: Luke Ahmet, Miguel Altunaga, Lucy Balfour, Josh Barwick, Daniel Davidson, Edit Domosziai, Liam Francis, Juan Gil, Brenda Lee Grech, Sharia Johnson, Vanessa King, Adam Park, Stephen Quildan, Hannah Rudd, Pierre Tappon, Simone Damberg Wurtz, (dancers). Nia Lyn (singer), Yshani Perinpanayagam (piano), Robert Millet (percussion), Andy Hamill (bass/bass guitar).
Rambert Dance has the audience gripped as they pull off a storming triple bill.
A Linha Curva, choreographed by Itzik Galili with music by Percossa, is an electric opening number. Standing in formation under multi-coloured spotlights with huge silver discs round their necks, the 26 dancers vent loud guttural chants that echo the drumbeats of the musicians performing live on a raised platform behind their heads. With barely time to absorb this spectacle, they’re gone in a flash, returning with whoops and cheers, dressed for the beach, bringing a carnival atmosphere with a Street Latin attitude.
Segueing seamlessly from fast and furious provocative routines incorporating elements of circus troupe gymnastics, accompanied by the pounding, pulsating percussion, to slow rotations of lingering sensuality that shimmer to the background noise of softly reverberating symbols, it is by turns both exhilarating and intoxicating.
Taking the concept of how to exist, cheek by jowl, within environments in continuous states of flux, composer Ilan Eshkeri and choreographer Andonis Foniadakis worked closely together to produce Symbiosis. Against the dramatic backdrop of a stage-wide silver sine wave, the dancers must adapt to every new technological innovation as well as learning to coexist with each other.
The dancers, male and female alike in identical leotards of geometric patterns, perform frantic, jarring movements with a frenetic energy that sees them clash and collide in the mayhem of an overloaded system in which individuals jostle for their own space and expression. With a shift in the music, the dance becomes a mellifluous flow of reciprocal synergy in which the dancers move in a rhythmic, interdependent harmony.
The final performance, Goat, is a multimedia showstopper. The stage is dressed to resemble a village hall and the dancers, in trousers, shirts and sensible shoes, are unstacking wooden chairs into neat rows. With mic in hand, dancer Miguel Altunaga provides David Attenborough-esque commentary, occasionally interrupting to ask intrusive and inappropriate questions, as he observes his fellow dancers taking part in a ritual that will see the ‘chosen one’ dance himself to death.
With a live band once again on stage and singer Nia Lynn giving glorious renditions of a selection of Nina Simone’s classic hits, elements of Ben Duke’s choreography are shown up-close thanks to a live camera-operator and a wide-screen on wheels. It is hilarious, disturbing and breathtakingly brilliant.
This is a night to remember and savour. Absolute perfection.
Runs 26th – 28th October