Dance: Life is but a dream

Nederlands Dans Theater
Gabriela Carrizo / Jiří Kylián /
Crystal Pite & Simon McBurney 
dancers Alexander Andison, Fay van Baar, Anna Bekirova, Jon Bond, Conner Bormann, Pamela Campos, Emmitt Cawley, Isla Clarke, Thalia Crymble, Cesar Faria Fernandes, Scott Fowler, Surimu Fukushi, Boston Gallacher, Aram Hasler, Nicole Ishimaru, Chuck Jones, Genevieve O’Keeffe, Kele Roberson, Yukino Takaura, Luca Tessarini, Lea Ved, Theophilus Vesely, Tess Voelker, Jianhui Wang, Nicole Ward
voices Simon McBurney, Mamie McBurney, Max Casella, David Annen
music Raphaëlle Latini, Dirk Haubrich, Owen Belton
puppets Jochen Lange
Sadler's Wells, London • 19-22.Apr.23

The NDT brings three pieces to Sadler's Wells this spring, each featuring a distinctive style of liquid choreography. Dancers move with an almost supernatural physicality in these performances, while conveying bigger ideas that will resonate in distinctive ways throughout the audience. It's a magical evening packed with dazzling moments.

First up is Gabriela Carrizo's provocative La Ruta, set along a surreal Lynchian highway where gravity and time seem to have no meaning. A variety of figures appear from the mist, expressing their internalised angst and attempting to assist each other. But in this dreamscape, things continue to take shocking twists and turns. All of this is visually spectacular, with inventive lighting and sound that evokes a pungent sense of the isolated, imaginative setting. And the performers move in ways that are often brain-bending, seemingly shifting forward and backward in time at different speeds and with a varying weightlessness that brings out a stunning scream of internalised longing.

Gods and Dogs is subtitled "an unfinished work" because choreographer Jiří Kylián finds beauty in something that is incomplete. It starts with a single lamp on stage as dancers appear on their own or in pairs, cleverly playing with balance as they intertwine in a series of scenarios. While centring on the astonishing physicality of the performers, this piece echoes the arc of birth, life, partnership and death, tapping into essentially human feelings and expressions. The stage is simple, expanding through light and projection into a mesmerising shimmering backdrop. And the choreography mixes modern movement with classical dance in ways that are both jaw-droppingly complex and simply beautiful.

Finally, Figures in Extinction [1.0] by choreographer Crystal Pite and theatre director Simon McBurney is a thoughtful and wrenchingly emotional exploration of the impact of climate change on animals, glaciers, lakes and humanity. It travels through a series of tableaux in which dancers perform pieces that echo specific extinct species or vanishing places, interrupted by a lively climate-change denier (who is also cheekily designated for extinction). These are gorgeously designed scenes that bristle with tactile imagery, recreating natural movements through an extremely clever use of light, physicality and puppetry. What emerges is a celebration of life as well as an elegiac comment on how humans change the world. And the quickening momentum provides a striking sense of urgency.

For details, visit SADLER'S WELLS >

photos by Joris-Jan Bos and Rahi Rezvani • 19.Apr.23