Sally McKay

La La La Human Steps are a Montreal based contemporary dance company founded in 1980 by Edourd Lock. New Work performed at Sadler’s Wells 28/9 – 1/11 brings together 2 tragic love affairs from operas: Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and Gluck’s Orpheus and Euridice, but the score is changed dramatically by composer Gavin Bryars for piano, viola, cello and saxophone it is played live on stage adding to the passion and energy in the intense choreography.

My drawings of La La La Human Steps performing “New Work” at Sadler’s Wells

The classically trained dancers move en pointe with incredible, take-your-breath-away speed and precision. The choreography catapults through anger, frustration, tenderness and passion. Two pools of bright light on the floor create restricted space to move in and sharpen the angular body frames of the female dancers dressed in black leotards and footless tights, throwing dramatic shadows of the male dancers in suits and heightening the atmosphere, contributing to the black and white filmic quality.

Above: Two of pages from my sketch book of drawings of La La La Human Steps, drawn during the performance. Print Studio at Second Floor Studios, Woolwich, London SE18 5NR, opens in November. Expect to see La La La Human Steps etchings soon after.

My first time watching/drawing The American Ballet Theatre who were performing at Sadler’s Wells last week. Two programmes, I chose the first over the second to see Twyla Tharp‘s Known By Heart. The first dance of the evening, danced by three couples to Scarlatti, was Alexei Ratmansky‘s Seven Sonatas.

I loved Twyla Tharp’s  Known by Heart performed by Gillian Murphy and Blaine Hoven to Donald Knaack‘s Junk Music. 

Twyla Tharp. Known By Heart

Another entirely different duet, Duo Concertant, followed, choreographed by George Balanchine.

Duo Concertant. George Balanchine

The final work, Everything Doesn’t Happen at Once choreographed by Benjamin Millepied had a 6 piece music ensemble on stage playing music by David Lang, performed by 24 dancers.

 Benjamin Millepied. Everything Doesn’t Happen at Once 

Prokofiev wrote the score to Cinderella during the Second World War, premiered by the Bolshoi in 1946. Matthew Bourne was intrigued and inspired by this discovery, he explored the possibility of setting Cinderella during this period, saying “…it seemed to work so well in the wartime setting. Darkly romantic in tone, it speaks of a period of time when time was everything, love was found and lost suddenly and the world danced as if there was no tomorrow.”

Cinderella in this setting made sense to me. I grew up with stories of London in the Blitz. My mother was a physiotherapist at The London Hospital in Whitechapel (now The Royal London Hospital) during the Second World War. Stories of leaving the hospital on nights off to dance and returning to find the walk ways to the hospital bombed and impassable; treating survivors after many were horrifically crushed to death attempting to enter Bethnal Green Tube Station during an air raid; her friend, never to love another, after her boyfriend was killed soon after signing up.

New Adventures‘ production of Cinderella is performed at Sadler’s Wells until 23rd January and then goes on tour.

The work of dancer and choreographer Russell Maliphant was showcased at Laban Theatre on 24th and 25th November. The programme contained three works, opening with a film-screening of an early duet, Critical Mass; Maliphant himself dancing the solo, Shift; followed by the most recent AfterLight (Part 1) performed by award winning dancer Daniel Proietto.

A collaboration between Russell Maliphant and lighting designer, Michael Hulls, with haunting cello music by Shirley Thompson. Shift is in essence a solo, but shadows appear, vanish and reappear on the back screen multiplying the dancer, so he is never alone until the last phrase of movement when each column of light fades,  leaving Maliphant a silhouette, seeming to dissolve with the light as it slowly fades away.

 Shift 

AfterLight (Part One) is inspired by the photographs and geometric circular drawings of Vaslav Nijinsky which he drew to describe his descent into psychosis. The solo is performed to piano music of Erik Satie. Michael Hulls has designed exquisite lighting, the audience are in complete darkness, (my pencil couldn’t locate my sketch book, no drawings). The dappled light falls on the dancer seeming to trap him in the shadows, as he moves he starts to spin as if casting off the darkness that enveloped him, the movement flows in spirals and circles, pools of light partially illuminating him as he moves. The climax is the dancer spinning so fast in an arc of dappled light, it is impossible to tell where his limbs end and the shadows take over. A collective sigh rose from the audience as the dancer slowed, the light faded and shadows enveloped the audience once more.