'That it goes up' reviews 'Me and You' reviews Phoenix 'Requiem' reviews recent Phoenix reviews more Anne Marriott reviews

I had better admit straight away that I prefer the original Phoenix. To a ballet lover who occasionally enjoys contemporary dance the programme on offer at Sadler's was rather daunting: three pieces, all with menacing urban themes, set to scores or soundtracks best described as challenging. The standard of dancing struck me as excellent and there was a very high energy quotient. The audience certainly appreciated the programme, especially the second and third pieces, but if I wasn't quite the "miserable old git sitting on my hands" as another contributor to ballet.co (Robert perhaps?) memorably described his response to Pina Bausch at The Barbican, neither did I leave the theatre in a state of ecstasy.

The first piece, "The fact that it goes up", was by Jeremy Nelson, London Contemporary Dance Theatre-trained New Zealander who has danced with several leading contemporary dance companies including Siobhan Davies here and Steven Petronio Dance Company in New York. I had never seen any of his work before (Ricochet Dance Company seems to be the only British company he has made work for). Two men and four women dancers performed the piece to a soundtrack of amplified city sounds - traffic roaring past, suburban train noises and footsteps clattering along pavements and up and down concrete steps. The set consisted of a backdrop with a stylised design of what could have been a basketball court or possibly an aerial view of gridiron city streets. The dancers moved singly, in pairs or small groups in ever-varying patterns building up into a series of repetitions, sometimes with the same dancers and sometimes with other dancers repeating the moves. Not being an afficionado of contemporary dance vocabulary I'm afra id I didn't really know what the dance was actually conveying (chance encounters,sex or violence or all of them, presumably) but it was easy on the eye, despite the rather brutal costumes - all cropped trousers and desperately tight tops which looked as if they had shrunk in the wash. One aspect of the piece that disturbed me was the use of a woman (Tiia Ourila I think) to do quite a lot of lifting, both of other women and in a couple of instances of one of the men. The strength was remarkable but I would give it nil out of ten for artistic impression.

The second piece, "Me & You", a duet by Fin Walker who may be familiar to Clore Studio regulars for her piece "Self" which formed part of an Artists Development Initiative evening last year, was danced by two men. It was a fast-moving piece which rather reminded me of some of Russell Maliphant's work in spirit if not in style. Two men wrestling/collaborating/not-quite-sure-what to a mystifying tape of two singers (countertenors) producing unaccompanied sounds with indecipherable words intermingled with pure voice notes. At one point I began to wonder if the singing had not been recorded and then played backwards, chopped up into tiny sections and reassembled in random order. Challenging but not enough to make one rush screaming from the theatre. The costumes for this piece reminded me strongly of the Nacho Duato big knickers trend recently spotted at Sadler's. The men wore cream coloured lycra trunks and sleeveless, polo necked, semi-opaque, ruched cream tops with spangly decoration on the collar. A bit girly for two such muscular men (I think they were Errol White and Yann Seabra but apologies if this is incorrect - the programme was generally uninformative on casting). Impressive performance by two equally matched dancers that went down a storm with the audience.

After a miserable interval in which one lonely bar person attempted to serve drinks to the thirsty first circle crowd, the final piece of the evening was "Requiem" by Darshan Singh Bhuller. A strongly narrative piece reminiscent of his earlier works "Planted Seeds" and "Recall", making extensive use of back projections and incidental telephone sounds, it dealt with a family tragedy and its aftermath. The piece involved the entire company and contained some effective choreography but its main strength lay in the opportunity it offered to the dancers to convey emotion. The set consisted of a hinged structure, one half forming a screen and the other variously a shop front, shop interior, house exterior and church interior being moved on its hinge into assorted positions by the dancers. The screen half of the structure contained a sort of hidden tunnel entrance through which the dancers emerged unexpectedly - a device similar to one used in Recall. The programme did give details of the cast of characters for t his piece and I did read it but unfortunately I completely missed the point until very late on. Since it started with a vicious fight between two men (who may or may not have been the thief/volunteer and the Uncle - who may or may not also have been a football hooligan) I must have overlooked the fact that the family tragedy was a missing (presumably abducted and murdered) little girl, not a dead son, victim I wrongly supposed of the fight. The little girl may have been present in the many filmed sequences shown during the on-stage action, but I always find the combined use of film and live dance confusing and I remained completely oblivious to her. I was aware that the family and the volunteers were doing a search of the area - I presumed for forensic evidence, but with hindsight as the piece neared its end realised it was for the missing child. Anyhow as all the characters gradually went to pieces and the back projection showed happy family video recordings of the missing child I realised the true nature of the tragedy just in time for the end. Perhaps she was abducted in revenge for the vicious fight at the start of the piece?

There were some strong sections and some welcome moments of high comedy, for example two lovers begin to rip each other's clothes off (thankfully top halves only) and disappear behind the set to reappear on film, in bed in post-coital mode - he with a smug expression, she rather disconcerted - with the caption: "52 seconds later". Much laughter. However my overall impression was one of muddle. There were too many episodes intended merely to convey a rather seedy impression of urban life, such as the shop-lifting section. In this it reminded me strongly of Planted Seeds which I found confusing. Recall on the other hand, although episodic, did hang together well and I found the relationships between the characters and the themes logical and easy to follow. Perhaps if I saw Requiem again all would become clear but after a one-night stand at Brighton on Tuesday 8 April the tour returns to the North so I fear I have missed my chance. All I can remember of the score by Jocelyn Pook was its incidental interruption by short snatches of pop music (ashamed to say my reaction was "thank goodness for a bit of tune")

The tour continues as follows:
The Gardner Arts Centre, University of Sussex, Brighton, Tuesday 8 April,
York Theatre Royal 29 and 30 April,
Lyceum Theatre, Sheffield 2 and 3 May,
Addleshaw Booth & Co. Theatre, Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester 6 and 7 May and
Warwick Arts Centre, Warwick University, Coventry 9 May, 2003.