© Jim Poyner 'Standing Stones' reviews recent Ascendance Rep reviews more Ian Palmer reviews Discuss this review (Open for at least 6 months)

These form the idée fixe by which we might understand Standing Stones - the four dancers (Daniella Ferreira, Ayano Honda, Katie Keeble and Paul Wilkinson) got up in vivid primary colours as Mediaeval Mummers, their faces striking the attitudes of gargoyles and misericords expelling the devils from out of the place. References might well be biblical - the distribution of apples a sign of Original Sin; a dancer holds the stance of crucifixion – yet so too are they Pagan, as when another dancer becomes a human Maypole, around which the others (be-ribboned) loop and wind. But there is nothing overtly “preachy” about Lansley’s work, rather it is poetic in its effect on site and space.

Her score is a piano and clarinet arrangement of Mozart’s beautiful Clarinet Quintet, played live by David White and Jonathan Delbridge (though it requires a drier acoustic – and a better tuned piano – than the Minster is able to offer) and her response to it, especially so in its slow second movement, is touchingly pure. Lansley allows the music to sing for itself, the dancers seeming to hear and respond to it as if the clarinet were bird-song and she gives it space to breathe within her movement. The music’s structure is reflected in the dance’s motifs – one sees the dancers performing (in sequence) a kind of arabesque allongée (though with both arms in front) and then threading their legs through these out-stretched arms; another sees one dancer resting his head upon his hands and then bending low and seeming to scoop his head back up. – and always it is a fascinating and truthful exposition on Mozart’s score. In its dancers Lansley and Wesson have performers of complete integrity; and at forty-five minutes in length, it is the perfect size. Catch it as it comes to a Cathedral near you.