Dance: Birds of a feather

Julie Cunningham & Company / Jules Cunningham
Crow / Pigeons
choreography Jules Cunningham
performers Harry Alexander, Nafisah Baba, Yu-Chien Cheng, Jules Cunningham, Matthias Sperling
Crow: soundscore JD Samson • design Julie Verhoeven
Pigeons: music Julius Eastman • costumes Loe D'Arcy
lighting Joshie Harriette
Sadler's Wells East, Stratford • 27-28.Mar.25 ★★★★

Part of Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels, this show features two pieces by Jules Cunningham, both of which use birds to explore issues of marginalisation in the vast but intimate new space at Sadler's Wells East. Each of these performances looks at issues of isolation and community, obstacles and freedom, through the eyes of vulnerable beings in the big city. So there are moments in each piece that are dazzlingly powerful, especially in the way the music combines beautifully with the skilled dancers' movement. At the same time, they also remain just a little out of reach.

Crow features Cunningham and Harry Alexander performing on a huge stage dotted with offbeat artefacts that create little spaces. In one of these, JD Samson performs live at a DJ deck, interacting with the dancers. Dressed like New Romantics, their movements resemble crows, individualistic but mimicking each other, moving in start-and-stop circles and striking staccato poses, reacting to the music. They also observe their surroundings, including an extended period when they amusingly stare down the audience. The lighting features red and black against a background screen featuring a swirling collage of colours and shapes. The kinetic performances are loose and offhanded, creating lovely rhythms and shapes without even a hint of emotion.

By contrast, Pigeons is more lyrical from the start, as all five dancers fill the stage by darting around in various formations, spiralling off on their own or moving together in fascinating layers of synchronicity. The costumes are floaty, deconstructed streetwear, and the way they group together and spin apart is fluid and naturalistic, beautifully augmented by Julius Eastman's multiple-piano piece Gay Guerilla. With very little arm movement and no lifts, the dancers convey feelings of isolation as well as unity, creating engaging connections that soar and resonate lightly. They also leave us with something to think about after the show. 

For details, SADLER'S WELLS >

conceptual photos by Studio Long • 27.Mar.25

Dance: Duets in the dark

Young Associates: Mixed Bill
Lilian Baylis Studio, Sadler's Wells • 22-23.Nov.23

This year's Young Associates showcase features four very different duets, each with its own distinctive tone. They are all performed on a dark stage with very strong lighting, as seen in the images...

Falling Forwards
choreography Maiya Leeke
dancers Joshua Hawkins, Emily Lue-Fong
music Randolph Matthews

Maiya Leeke's work emerges from her background as a jazz saxophonist, and as a dancer she appeared in Barbie. This piece features a range of intriguing juxtapositions between two dancers, a male and female wearing loose, flowing costumes that sometimes seem to get in the way. They move against each other, on their own and sometimes in unison, creating eye-catching shapes. On the soundtrack, breathy rhythms give way to music as the choreography shifts from sharp movement into much more musical expression. The couple comes together to perform a series of lovely moves before separating again. The movement is demanding, beautifully performed to create engaging characters and a story that's involving and even moving. 

Ida’s Solace
choreography Elisabeth Mulenga
dancers Laurie Ward, Steffi Fashokun
music by Travis Yu

Elisabeth Mulenga takes inspiration from cinema as she explores the human psyche. This piece is challenging and sometimes abrasive, as two women in calf-length dresses writhe in unison and then separate to strike poses that have echoes of horror, sometimes juddering or breaking into huge facial expressions. Performance art rather than dance, the movement is often awkward and difficult, deliberately revealing the strain both in the individual and in the way they try to interact with each other. It also sometimes feels aggressive and violent. Much of this is alienating and even disturbing, but it's also eerily intimate. So even as it pushes us away, we are intrigued.

At the Foot of the Brae
choreography Roseann & Sula
dancers Yu-Chien Cheng, Naissa Bjørn
sound design Jan Brzezinski

With a plinth in the centre of the stage, this piece features two androgynous dancers who are both male and female, performing in ways that suggest a queer struggle for connection and meaning in life. It's a moving piece, choreographed theatrically by Roseann and Sula to echo their experiences growing up in central Scotland. This involves evocatively staged extended solo sections that include enormous movement, revealing huge effort and big emotional outbursts. Then when the dancers are together, they fly around the stage with real power. But there's always a struggle, a push and pull. It's a lovely depiction of gender fluidity, a cry for hope.

My Glimmer Boo
choreography Blue Makwana
dancers Lauren Jenkins, Tanisha Addicott
lighting Amelia Hawkes

Dedicated to Matthew Perry, this cheeky piece uses friendship as its central theme, opening with a voiceover introduction to two social media stars. They emerge grinning and snapping selfies, adeptly performing a riotously athletic TikTok style routine before shifting their costumes for a modern dance section. This includes emotional turns on their own and as a pair, leading into a more classical dance piece that's elegant and empowering. Then the phone is back as they merge all three styles in a whizzy, inventive way, performed with intricate skill to a remixed version of the Friends theme. The music all the way through is clever, and the red and black colour scheme inventively interacts with the lighting. It's also very sweet.

For information, visit SADLER'S WELLS >

photos courtesy Sadler's Wells • 22.Nov.23

Dance: Free expression

Julie Cunningham & Company
Lilian Baylis Studio, Sadler's Wells, London • 10-11.Nov.22

In response to two iconic pieces of Western classical music, Jules Cunningham and company present a queer spin on music that is normally danced traditionally. As a choreographer, Cunningham creates remarkably expressive work that catches nuances of the music in ways that feel almost off-handed. They also convey a remarkable range of very personal emotions, with vivid highs and lows.

M/y-kovsky
choreographer Jules Cunningham
performers Yu-Chien Cheng, Jules Cunningham, Eleanor Perry, Owen Ridley-DeMonick, Stephen Quildan
assistant director/dramaturg Harry Alexander
lighting Imogen Clarke
music Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No 1 second movement performed by Berlin Philmarmonic (1996), first movement performed by Orchestre de la Suisse Romande (1975)

Using Tchaikovsky's second movement as this piece's first half, Cunningham and Perry are on-stage acting out cheeky meeting with a roll of paper that becomes what looks like a picnic blanket, feeding into their flirtatious interaction. They then separate, using two more rolls to create bed-like scenarios across the stage, writing notes to each other before reuniting to exchange them. The interaction is never quite what we expect, full of witty twists and turns, performed with mischievous glee.

In the second half, four dancers perform to Tchaikovsky's triumphant first movement, combining classical and modern moves, barefoot in shiny black overalls that allow for some terrific pocket work. The tone shifts with the music, from a soaring march to more darkly emotive moments. Dancers move as a united group then spiral out into individual flourishes or break off in pairs. This use of the space with layers of personal interaction puts a playful spin on a familiar classical piece, including a witty interlude in which Cunningham enters the stage, joining, disrupting and coaxing the action.

Fire bird
choreographer/performer Jules Cunningham
featuring JD Samson
assistant director/dramaturg Joyce Henderson
lighting Imogen Clarke
costume/design Tim Spooner, Jules Cunningham
music Stravinsky's The Firebird performed by Bergen Philharmonic (2012)

With red string zig-zagging above the stage, Cunningham begins against the wall, casting dramatic shadows that seem to fight for dominance, pushing and pulling before they break free of each other. What follows is an epic 40-minute intimate performance that follows the ebb and flow of the music, shifting in tone from energetic expressiveness to contained darkness. The physical strain is considerable, as Cunningham pushes their body to extremes to reveal vulnerability and defiance.

Along the way, a video square appears on a wall showing a recording booth where mumbling vocals are added to the orchestration. Then Cunningham grabs a microphone and hums along while continuing to dance. They also find a pair of trainers in a corner, which allows for even more intense physicality, leading to a very big finish that echoes Stravinsky's musicality. Pretty much every emotion is demonstrated in this piece, with moves that are huge as well as quietly internalised, reacting and interacting to the music while being fearlessly individualistic.

Both of these pieces are powerful to watch, as they take on the nature of dance history itself, rewriting it for a more fluid generation. And while it may sometimes feel a bit meandering, the intensely personal nature of Cunningham's work carries a proper kick.

m/y-kovsky photo by Zbigniew Kotklewicz from an earlier production
fire bird photos by Christa Holka • 10.Nov.22