Dance: Finding your feet

Cunningham Forever
Beach Birds and Biped
Lyon Opera Ballet
choreography Merce Cunningham

dancers Yuya Aoki, Jacqueline Baby, Kristina Bentz, Eleonora Campello, Jeshua Costa, Katrin de Bakker, Tyler Galster, Livia Gil, Paul Gregoire, Jackson Haywood, Mikio Kato, Amanda Lana, Eline Larrory, Almudena Maldonado, Eline Malegue, Albert Nikolli, Amanda Peet, Leoannis Pupo, Roylan Ramos, Anna Romanova, Gianmarco Romano, Marta Rueda, Emily Slawski, Ryo Shimizu, Giacomo Todeschi, Alejandro Vargas, Kaine Ward
music John Cage, Gavin Bryars
costumes Marsha Skinner, Suzanne Gallo
lighting Aaron Copp
Sadler's Wells, London • 19-20.Mar.25 ★★★

Part of the Van Cleef & Arpels' Dance Reflections festival, this programme features two pieces choreographed by Merce Cunningham. These are strikingly physical dances, demanding a lot of strength from the performers as they strike broad poses that are often balanced on one foot. Interaction is varied, with solos, duets and group numbers that swirl through a variety of shapes, occasionally finding a sense of group synchronicity. This individuality is clearly deliberate in both pieces, which makes the storytelling difficult to follow. As a result, the emotional impact is somewhat muted. These are pieces that are admired rather than strongly felt.

Beach Birds was created in 1991 in partnership with composer John Cage. Eleven dancers move around the stage on their own, arms outspread, sometimes partnering to create little scenes as pairs or trios. This allows each performer to infuse their work with some personality, which swells up when they flock together into a larger movement. Music is minimal, with single piano notes alongside some strings and rain sticks. Costumes are lovely, two-toned bodysuits in black and white. And the stage is bare, with only shifting colours in the backdrop.

Created in 1999, just after Cunningham's 80th birthday, Biped focusses on the human body, as the title suggests, playing on how weight is distributed between two feet. There are some 15 dancers coming on and off the stage behind a scrim, onto which gorgeous images are projected, both abstract shapes and gigantic dancing figures who seem to swirl around the performers the stage floor, which is marked in shifting patterns of light. The result is visually dazzling, with a surging live musical score and various groupings of dancers in apparently random groupings that are edgy and vibrant. Their shimmering costumes add to the striking visual effect.

There's a sense that Cunningham's challenging choreography is almost spoofing elite art performance, forcing the audience to continually question why seemingly inexplicable things happen on-stage. This is perhaps because, while there's a clear intentionality to all of it, the wider audience feels somewhat left in the dark regarding the meaning. We can admire the skill of the dancers, especially their endurance in such intense physicality, and the staging itself is beautiful. All of which makes it a wonderful celebration of the human form.

For details, SADLER'S WELLS >

photos by Agathe Poupeney • 20.Mar.25