‘Ghost Dances’ reviews ‘Golden Section’ reviews ‘August Pace’ reviews all Rambert reviews Rambert Performances

Although by no means full, the auditorium was incredibly animated, with several hundred teenage schoolchildren present, courtesy of generous discounts from Rambert. They chattered, squawked and milled about like a flock of starlings. I found it hard to concentrate on August Pace, the opening item, mainly because there was so much conversation going on, and initially there was quite a bit of giggling. It certainly wasn’t the most accessible piece on the programme; I think Cunningham needs real concentration to follow. The programme notes suggested that this was a cheerful piece, but I found it rather austere. The dancers looked initially a little tense and subdued and seemed to be concentrating very hard: as the performance continued the mood did lighten, and the sense of pleasure in pure movement came across more clearly.

The start of the second item inconsiderately interrupted a detailed comparison of navel piercings in the row behind me, somewhat to the occupants’ disappointment. Bruce’s Ghost Dances begins in silence, or ought to. Attempts to quiet the persistent noises in the vicinity met with a response "But we’re only trying to eat". (I would much prefer to be reviewing the performance rather than the audience, given the chance. I would point out that this wasn’t advertised as a schools performance.) Fortunately after this point the music increased in volume sufficiently to cover some of the noise, and even the more recalcitrant members of the audience were drawn in to the drama.

Ghost Dances has been seen on TV here a few times in a version by the Houston Ballet: it’s an unusual experience to see on stage something previously seen on the box, and I was struck by how very dim the stage lighting seemed compared to the more vivid images in my memory, with the initial stirrings of the three masked dancers seemingly coming out of some primeval mud. Ghost Dances isn’t a narrative as such, but does contain characters that the audience can identify with - couples and individuals who have their moment in the sunlight before death comes to claim them. It’s strongly drenched with Latin American flavour, and set to haunting Latin American music (which sadly sounded slightly on the thin side in performance).

Death in the shape of the three skull-masked dancers is conveyed with real force by Paul Liburd, Jan de Schynkel, and David Hughes. Matthew Hart went all out to wow the audience as the most light-hearted and fun loving of the victims and was rewarded by plenty of squeals as a result: it might have been entertaining, but his cuteness seemed rather jarring in context. It is a very powerful work, both full of hope and sinister at the same time. The dancing is beautifully fluid and very characteristically Bruce.

The final work was The Golden Section, an action-packed Tharp piece which seemed to pack an entire evening’s work for the dancers into 15 minutes, with so many entrances and exits it was like rush hour at Victoria. This featured on the bill on Rambert’s last visit to Sadler’s in May: the dancers seem to be much more inside the work now, and ready to play around and have a little fun. It’s a work which gave the dancers an opportunity to be a little more crowd pleasing in their gyrations, which some of them took (Matthew Hart again). Lots of audience response to this one, though for some teenage girls this seemed result from seeing Paul Liburd clad only in gold pants rather than from a response to the dance itself.

This was an interesting programme, but it was quite a frustrating experience trying to concentrate on what was happening on the stage. Each piece received lots of screaming and stamping at the curtain, regardless of the amount of chatter that had taken place while it was going on: The Golden Section seemed to be this particular audience’s favourite.