As the new season draws closer with our Premiere at the Lowry in Salford on the 27th April, we take a look back at the 2008/09 season with a glowing review from an audience member who won tickets to see the performance at the Floral Pavilion. Read what she had to say…
‘Still’ was multi-layered and full of humor. The use of voice was refreshing in a dance piece – when used as a song it worked well against/alongside the accompanying movement, being flowing and lyrical whilst grabbing at your emotions. ‘The Perfect Human’ addressed the audience and society with questions I feel that are important and often get swept over. The movement was intense, energetic, smooth, poignant and in contrast to ‘Still’ drew heavily on shape, form and lines.
I particularly enjoyed the individualism that came with ‘Still’ – I felt that (Nigel Charnock and) the performers gave a large slice of themselves to the performance. And although there were moments of unison, I appreciated each individual dancer and their own use of body within the group during these sequences. The unison sequences of ‘The Perfect Human’ had a completely different quality of a machine-like mentality or rhythm linking the movement to the music. Although I completely understand that placement in the space is crucial to how a piece is received, and am sure there is a choreographic reason, I couldn’t always see the dancers on the ‘back row’, especially Welly O’Brien. I found myself wondering how the unison sequences would look if the ‘rows’ were to change at any point?
Two moments that especially remain with me are Annie Hanauer’s solo in ‘The Perfect Human’ as it was just so beautiful. The second is the section in ‘Still’ when the dancers break out of the fourth wall and come spilling into the audience rolling in bin bags, hiding in the orchestra pit and watching Victoria Malin lean casually over a chair commenting on how crazy all of the other performers are! Brilliant!