© Asya Verzhbinsky 'Plants and Ghosts' reviews recent Siobhan Davies reviews recent ENB reviews more Bruce Marriott reviews

Getting to Hangar 3022 at RAF Upper Heyford proved fun and I got lost before finding the RAC signs - RAC signs for a dance event must be a first too I suspect! Having found the entrance it was still over 2 miles of zigzagging through a pretty desolate flat landscape of hangars apparently plonked down every which way but ordered. 3022 was rather impressive though - its corrugated barrel-shaped roof strange in itself but filled in the middle with a large dance floor, high tech lights on tracks and some comfy benches. The audience sits in long tiered rows facing each other, the dancers strutting between.

'Plants and Ghosts' is not a site-specific event as such because it's a touring production, but all the locations are strange and will be new to many. The idea is to give the audience new ways of seeing works and becoming more involved. The great benefit of a set-up like this is the luxury of being close to the dancers - to see the incredible dexterity and control, their (odd!) feet, their sheer strength and athleticism. You notice things you'd never see in a month of Sundays sitting rows back or up in the gods somewhere. But whether you become more involved in the piece itself I'm a little more sanguine.

Siobhan Davies' Plants and Ghosts
Photograph by Asya Verzhbinsky ©

The notes on 'Plants and Ghosts' talk about the growth of beings in biological and spiritual terms. I saw (and heard) a sea shore, eddies and waves, amoebae, flickering life, crackling camp fires all the way through to 21st century lunching lady and images beyond. It's not a literal piece of course and I was generally much more absorbed in the movement and production values than any particular insight into growth.

The costumes (Genevieve Bennett and Sasha Keir) were particularly stunning, mainly in black but also with an iridescent quality and would fluoresce with the simplest of dance movement. At other times the costumes were cut and folded in very futuristic ways. There were also white rods - imagine 6 ft fibreglass fishing rods that were either part of the costume or just bent and manipulated by the dancers. Larger rods came out later as the dancers went on stilts and all their movements were amplified. Davies often has dancers in twos or threes but they never seem to dance together so much as inhabit the same bit of space and all interaction is kinetic. It's loose and yet has a very controlled formality.

The most appreciated part of the evening was a monologue that was also mimed in sign language. The monologue started with a simple phrase from a story which was then repeated and embellished and extended time and time again. The story itself got odder and funnier but it was the signing that gave it such punch. Sign language is just so graphic and laced with its own humour and common sense gesture, which because of the repeating you read better and better.

I came away rather up that I'd been to such a 'happening' and seen new and interesting things. It wasn't just the dance but the location, the seats/setting and the design that made the 80 minuetes or so whiz by.

Although there was no sign language on display at English National Ballet's Choreographic Workshop that was probably just a weird fluke because there was more terrific invention and experiment here than I've seen in quite a while. For years ENB have had workshops but they are very much in-house affairs with very limited space and a feeling they were not for outsiders. The workshop is actually the result of 4 weeks of effort with the dancers and choreographers all working in their own time - currently their day jobs are learning/creating a new Nutcracker and a triple bill including a new Mark Morris piece. Anyway I felt really privileged to be there as the company let their hair down.

There were 16 pieces in all, varying from the very classical to the outright experimental, with hoofing numbers and goodness knows what else between. In the entire evening I think there were only one or two pieces that I found little in - that's amazing and this was the strongest and zippiest workshop show I've ever seen. I particularly liked 'Mute Commute' by Amanda Armstrong which had no dance in at all but was the result of observation of what happens in the

Thomas Edur in his own solo Photograph by Daniel Jones ©

underground - very witty. And Simone Clarke's weird 'Inside Out', a look at some mental asylum inmates and from whom Matz Ek might learn a thing or too about presentation. Thomas Edur had some pieces up including a solo that showed him as anything but the straight classical Prince we all talk about. In fact one of the great joys of the evening was seeing people do what you would not normally associate with them.

The evening ended appropriately with Daniel Jones's 'And Finally' a confident, fun pleaser of a piece based on... wait for it... dance endings in all their rich and showy variety. Great idea well executed by a cast of 6 including Tom and Agnes. It was a terrific night and if they were all like this I can't understand why they have not been put on properly for the wider world. Matz Skoog, the company's new Artistic Director, was also impressed and I think I heard him say that the show would be put on properly somewhere and when it is you should all go and celebrate the invention and fun we just don't see enough off.

I think if I were at the Arts Council I'd make it a condition of grant funding that all companies hold yearly choreographic workshops like this. Assuming the planned shows go ahead, ENB now have a terrific series of stepping stones for dancers and dance creators with the workshops, the mid-scale tours, the triple bills and the full length shows. As if to make the point, on Saturday morning I got to see part of Christopher Hampson's new Nutcracker. While Hampson has worked for many institutions it is ENB that has consistently backed him and year on year commissioned new and longer pieces, culminating in the Nutcracker - their signature piece. I'm not allowed to say much about it 'cos the Times have an exclusive... but its not half good!! ( = Cool for those of a younger disposition)