For nearly six decades, the Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT) have been the gold standard in balletic modern dance, with their members’ finely honed bodies, cashew feet and stunning form that do everything but inspire emotion. This is the constant critical gripe, and it has merit; such clean lines and sharp proficiency draw your eye to the dancer, not the dance. But physical perfection has its own appeal, and this programme features some standout pieces. Critical grumbles aside, this is worth seeing.
By Sol Léon and Paul Lightfoot. Friday 3 and Sunday 4 November.
Set to Philip Glass’ eerie Tirol Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, this film noir-inspired piece peeks into windows of a revolving house, framed by an ever-present moon, to discover people at their most intimate. One man is perched in the middle of a wall and another rolls anguished on the ground, while couples in 1940s-style nightclothes show anything but tenderness. In fact, one pair even lies motionless on the ground, and when a third man enters to mop up the woman’s blood, the other man makes a hasty exit. No one said love was easy.
By Edward Clug. Sunday 5 November.
Romanian choreographer Edward Clug first started dancing to better survive the Ceausescu regime. He has since blazed a trail through august dance companies and festivals, and this month presents his first work for NDT. Clug, maddeningly, offers little description other than Proof being his second piece set to the music of Radiohead, his favourite band and his ‘soundtracks to his other side’, but his approach to movement can be arresting, and is still worth watching.
By Crystal Pite. Friday 3 and Saturday 4 November.
Gleaning the best reviews of NDT multi-bills, Pite knows how to create a mood. Here she uses throbbing music, bleak lighting, thunder and lighting, and spooky shadows to create an air of panic and loneliness. The dancers are frenetic when together and shattered when alone; a solo dancer searches the floor and grabs his throat and chest as if choking. Safety in numbers?
By Sol Léon and Paul Lightfoot. Sunday 5 November.
A side-by-side male and female dancer execute rapid movements in unison, then apart, then in unison again – never missing even a facial expression. This is set not to music, but to the authoritative, clipped tones of Gertrude Stein reading her poem ‘If I Told Him: A Completed Portrait of Picasso’. Its repetitive, conjugating nature makes it perfect for choreography, and the audience looks forward to signature movements on the words ‘Napoleon’, ‘kings’, and ‘shutters shut’. But there is no room for error: the many reiterations of ‘exactly’, ‘exact resemblance’, ‘exactitude’ remind you what a knife’s edge these dancers tread, and how skillfully they manage the blade.
By Marco Goecke. Sunday 5 November.
This piece uses Jeff Buckley songs as a backdrop: the mournful ‘You and I’ and the more upbeat if frantic ‘The Way Young Lovers Do’ deal with different kinds of passion, but mostly the young, fearless, damnthe-consequences kind (they’ll learn). Fluid but complex movement telling age-old stories.
By Sol Léon and Paul Lightfoot. Friday 3 and Saturday 4 November.
Set to the joyful music of Bach and inspired, supposedly, by the I Ching (the connection does not leap out), this piece features a stage bare except for a rotating wall that creates spaces for solos, duets and group pieces for dancers clad in simple black or white. The piece speaks to how souls survive, no matter what their environment (or where their wall).
