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Phoenix Dance Theatre: Mixed Programme
West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds/Touring
PHOENIX Dance Theatre’s latest mixed programme comes with much anticipation for new piece Windrush: Movement of the People.
A commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the SS Empire Windrush's arrival in Britain with emigrants from the Caribbean, it headlines a bill that opens with Aletta Collins’s Maybe Yes Maybe, Maybe No Maybe.
Created in 2009, the company favourite turns the voices of five dancers into a bold electronic soundtrack. Wittily blending beats with movement, the action is framed within a shifting circle of light in the centre of which dangles a solitary microphone.
The starkness of the set contrasts with the expansiveness of the dancers, who tentatively weave and combatively leap in response to the score being produced.
In sharp tonal contrast, Christopher Bruce’s Shadows (2014) is taut and turbulent. Choreographed to Arvo Part’s violin and piano piece Fratres, it focuses on a family as a symbol for social displacement.
Fearful of unspecified forces, the dancers alternately pull apart and comfort one another as they hide and then confront whatever’s in the darkness, eventually leaving their house for an unknown future.
The succinctness and intense emotion of the piece is something that Windrush initially struggles to achieve.
The set and props designed by Eleanor Bull draw on the company's theatrical bent. Yet Sharon Watson’s choreography lacks dramatic weight in the opening scenes, which show people preparing to leave the Caribbean. The pacing is further hindered by the 1980s incidental muzak.
But the piece gains momentum when the action moves to Britain and the immigrants experience racism from a group of identically dressed and masked women, who peg out underwear spelling out “trash” on a clothesline.
The scene is nonetheless overlong and it’s not until the story picks up with a house party in the 1980s that the piece finally comes to life. Attended by a masked woman, her clumsy grinding plays on the stereotype of black people having natural rhythm, while her final unmasking is an acknowledgement of shared humanity.
Such moments offer flashes of emotional power and humour. But overall Windrush would benefit from re-editing, especially in the early scenes.
Tours until May 10, details: phoenixdancetheatre.co.uk
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