Scottish Dance Theatre, The Flock/Moving Cloud, Beacon Arts Centre, Greenock Birds in flight is the underlying inspiration for The Flock, choreographed by Roser López Espinosa and set to a (mainly percussive) soundscore by Mark Drillich and Ilia Mayer that hints at birds cawing or bills rapidly clicking and clattering.
A four star review for Festival Dance at Edinburgh's Assembly Hall.
This melding of beauty and transience resonated so profoundly with dancer Aakash Odedra and choreographer Rani Khanam that they came together to create Songs of the Bulbul, an hour-long solo that Odedra has just premiered at this year’s Edinburgh Festival.
The fabulous ‘wow!’ factor is every bit as urgent and compelling as it was when Grupo Corpo last lit up the EIF dance programme in 2014.
In a recent tweak - there’s a same-sex couple (of guys) with a baby who are totally accepted by the community.
An awe-inspiring degree of stamina and strength is to the fore in this double bill of contemporary dance from Korea. The prowess on-stage, however, has meaningful humanity at the core of the choreography in both pieces. And while few - if any of us! - could emulate the bravura activities of the dancers, we can certainly identify with the issues and scenarios they explore in their movement.
When Scottish Ballet premiered David Dawson’s radically re-imagined Swan Lake in 2016, there were talking points aplenty. He’d stripped out classically familiar tropes - no tutus, no Rothbart casting spells, no Royal panoply. Instead, the central encounter between a misfit Siegfried and an other-worldly Odette gained nuanced intensity, with Dawson’s physically, riskily, fierce duets bringing them together in touching distance of possible happiness. That it ends with Odette betrayed and Siegfried bereft, touches us to the core: 19th century myth acquired everyday humanity.
Split seconds… That’s all it took for the accident to happen. The aftermath, however, remains ongoing
Chunky Jewellery ,Tramway, Glasgow, four stars
Artistic Director and Cinders! choreographer, Christopher Hampson, had long been reflecting on the male/female stereotypes that still prevail in many ballets and fairy tales.
