Richard Alston Dance Company, Festival Theatre, Review

This is the 20th anniversary year of the Richard Alston Dance Company, renowned as a most innovative and dynamic ensemble, the legacy from Alston’s outstanding career with LCDT and Rambert.

This Autumn UK and USA tour celebrates the diversity of works from the past ten years including two premieres.

The Festival Theatre programme starts on a languid, lyrical tone, featuring poetry and songs which inspired Benjamin Britten. Smart (1722-1771), was a prolific writer until a mental breakdown led to an obsessive religious fervour, an insanity released in torrents of insightful poetry - "the purest case of man's vision prevailing over the spirit of his times."

Britten was inspired to write a Festival Cantata, based on extracts from Smart’s Jubilate Agno, which is the musical setting for Alston’s “Rejoice in the Lamb.”

With soft shafts of light as if shining from stained glass Abbey windows, a small group of dancers crouch in a flower format, as if in communal prayer: “Rejoice in God, O ye tongues, Give the Glory to the Lord and the Lamb.”

Centre stage is Christopher Smart, a solitary figure dressed in straight-jacket; He’s like a Wise Man around whom they gather.

In colours of coral and green, the girls’ Dirndl skirts flair out, as they join hands with the boys to create processional lines and circles. Humour too, as the song relates the story of Smart’s cat Jeoffry, playing with two mice. As music and spiritual language reach a crescendo, the movement becomes a celebration of life and love to reflect the “stillness and serenity of soul”.

This links neatly into a second work by Alston, "Holderlin Fragments" based on Britten’s Song Cycle with solo piano accompaniment. Themes of youth, romance and love are expressed through six short songs, energetic solos, intimate duets and Martial art-style moves; precise balletic technique with free flowing elegance and emotional heart.

And then we were treated to the World Premiere of "Burning" by Martin Lawrance. The narrative and the music is all about Franz Liszt. Pianist Jason Ridgeway performs the Dante Sonata live on stage which adds heightened emotion.

With Bohemian style, Liszt apparently behaved like a ‘60s Rock star, and was involved in a “wild and crazy” love affair with Countess Marie D’Agoult.

Two male and four female dancers echo this relationship as well as the Maestro’s adoring female fans. A trio of ladies flock around him like Furies much to Marie’s despair, in a series of fast and frenetic acrobatic lifts and slow, graceful duets.

Liam Riddick as Liszt and Nancy Nerantzi as Marie, the scarlet woman in a red dress, are simply captivating, their passionate love expressed in an erotic tango of an embrace. The entire piece is simply breathtaking, each piano chord and dance step in perfect unison. "Burning" is a masterclass in meticulous, mesmerising choreography, faultlessly performed.

The evening ends with the fast-paced "Overdrive" (Alston). This explosion of light, colour and geometric shapes combined with Terry Riley’s strident music, create a pattern of rhythmic repetition in sound and movement. It’s like an Abstract Expressionist painting – De Kooning or Pollock - come to life on stage with an hypnotic sense of joy and freedom.

Showtimes: (Selection from programme of six dances at each venue)

Tue 11 Nov, 7.30pm
Theatre Royal, Glasgow