Sally McKay

Random Dance was founded by Wayne McGregor in 1992. The work is experimental, embracing new technology, science and visual art. The ten dancer ensemble are not afraid to push their bodies to explore physical extremes in movement; rapid, sometimes intensely angular moves are demanded of them in the choreography. McGregor says “I’ve always been interested in the body slightly misbehaving”.

The title of the dance, Far, is an abbreviation of Roy Porter’s Flesh in the Age of Reason, a history of 18th Century explorations into body and soul.

The music is composed by Australian electronic composer, Ben Frost.

A large panel of lights sits low down at the back of the stage, designed by lighting designer, Lucy Carter. Throughout the dance the lights seem to act kinetically as if affected by the dancers movement.

When I’ve watched and drawn something that totally engages me, all I want is to see and draw again, but the company are now on tour not returning to the UK until March 2011, to Laban and Snape Maltings – both venues that I have exhibited at. The performance I watched was at Sadler’s Wells.

Two men in plain clothes dance for an hour on a big empty stage, sometimes shadowing each other, sometimes alone, sometimes in perfect unison.

It’s as if they are reading each others minds and responding without the need of sight. They rarely touch, rarely acknowledge one another with even a glance, but their muscular bodies seem to hold an empathy with each other.

Winter Variations grew from a shorter dance, Winter Voyage, also created and danced by Israeli choreographer Emanuel Gat and Roy Assaf. Performed at Sadler’s Wells and on tour as part of Emanuel Gat Dance‘s current programme.

A year ago I drew Emanuel Gat with Candoco Dance Company rehearsing In Translation. This lyrical, beautiful dance was recently performed at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall on the Southbank as part of Candoco’s touring show Rendition’s. He works the dancers hard, creating an energizing supportive space, with clear intentions.

Winter Variations is meticulous in detail, the dancers never falter. Throughout the dance the relationship and mood shifts between playful, mournful, sensual ending with isolation. Music ranges from Schubert, to The Beetles urban “Day in the Life” moving on their knees; a song by Egyptian Riad al Sunbati to Gustav Mahler’s Song of the Earth, to which the men dance in tactile sensual unison, only to agonizingly separate.

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