Jeyasingh Reviews

This was a fascinating evening and a landmark for the Company. The first piece, 'Memory and other Props' draws on works from the past ten years and the second, 'Fine Frenzy' looks in new directions. 'Memory', which I have seen before, has one of the most exquisite combinations of set and lighting that I have ever seen. A series of stretched translucent sheets, decorated with a gold, spidery pattern are set across and back into the stage. The sheets take on radically different qualities when lit with a dazzling range of colours from in front or behind, high or low. The most beautiful has a deep red light projected from behind and above, with the tracery of the pattern producing an intricate design on the floor of the stage. The designer, Madeleine Morris and the lighting consultant, Lucy Carter, cannot be praised too highly for their work. This knack of finding talented collaborators seems to be one of the strengths of Jeyasingh.

The Company's starting place is the classical Indian school of Bharata Natyam. For me, some of it's delights are the shapes made by arms, hands and fingers, as well as the graceful and rapid steps and movements and the percussive slapping of bare feet on the stage. 'Memory' opens with two dancers performing a sequence in classical style, but then they turn and confront each other in contemporary dance movements with conflicts coming to the surface. This juxtaposition and blending of the two styles is typical of the whole work and makes for an absorbing synthesis. One result of the piece is that it makes me keen to see more of the classical dance form.

But Jeyasingh has taken the form into new regions and the interactions of the dancers and the deviations from the stiff spine of the classical tradition open up fresh possibilities. A quick sequence to a racy violin solo, bathed in the red light described earlier, is the high spot of 'Memory' for me and the attack and grace of the dancers, as they trace complex shapes in perfect unison, raised my spirits to somewhere up near the rafters.

The second work looks forward to the coming ten years and is set to a driving jazz score by Django Bates, apparently inspired by the hustle of a busy North London street and performed by the formidable Apollo Saxophone Quartet. In the hectic opening sequence, the contemporary steps seen earlier are very much to the fore and match the dissonance of the music. However, this time the classical movements sometimes seem squashed in, which takes away some of their lustre. One thing is for sure, Jeyasingh has set her dancers a heroic task and they rise to the challenge. The set and lighting are again excellent with a series of twisted neon tubes sometimes framed against a filmed back projection. Later in the piece, the pace and the original wildness of the movements become calmer for extended periods and I enjoyed 'Fine Frenzy' more. I suspect it will never be my favourite work by this gifted choreographer, but again one has to admire her urge to seek new directions and her reluctance to repeat herself, even when it has worked so well in the past.

The Shobana Jeyasingh Company are at The Place until Saturday, 6th March, as part of Spring Loaded. Details are in Listings and the March Magazine has an interview with Emma Gladstone, who programmed the season.

Dancers : Jasmine Simhalan, Radhica Laukaran, Shamita Ray, Savitha Sekhar, Chitra Srishailan, Natasha Bakht.