Verdict - four stars
Rambert
Theatre Royal, Glasgow
FOUR STARS
Three very different short works, three very different choreographic mind-sets - and movement challenges - served up with equally impressive panache by one company: Rambert. No mean feat, given that Ashley Page's edgy-slow burn Subterrain demands a sleekly balletic body-line from five couples caught in brooding shadowlands, while Christopher Bruce's Rooster - in keeping with the Rolling Stones soundtrack - calls for Jagger-swagger from the guys and some minx-ish-flirty frolics from the girls. As for Frames, the new commission from Alexander Whitley - given its world premiere in Glasgow last week - well, it requires an ability to join up more than just steps...
With everyone in uniform-unisex white shirt/sand-coloured trousers, the company looks like a brisk work-force as they get to grips with Whitley's constructs. On a physical level, this means connecting metal poles of varying lengths into the "frames" of the title, a process that soon takes on its own synchronised rhythms and yes, there is a whiff of giant Meccano as rods click together in geometric formations. At one point, the structures resemble rehearsal room barres, and the dancers briefly go through warm-up stretches as if preparing for class. You could say that image is a clue to the thought processes at work in Frames, for Whitley's choreography works hard to demonstrate parallels between bodies (with skeletal frameworks), material building blocks (nicely cogent - the Theatre Royal foyer is a recent construction!) and the less visible conjunctions that produce a piece of dance. There's even a cosmic element, when the final jigsaw of poles and spotlights is hoisted aloft, to twinkle like a constellation.
This density of themes and images initially veers towards visual cacophony and pole-centred busy-ness, but - thanks, in no small measure, to the dancers' dexterity and focus - Frames resolves into into something celebratory and uplifting, richly charged with human endeavour and creative impulses.
Rooster, as always, delights with its sass and musicality. Subterrain thrills because of Page's flair for imbuing classic techniques with shades of erotic mystery and urgent desires. The Rambert dancers made it all look effortlessly easy - wow!
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