Dance Derby
Dance Derby
MacRobert Centre, Stirling
Mary Brennan
The poor are always with us, so why not make them into a spectator sport? Nowadays they pop up on our television screens, apparently caught in their real lives by documentary cameras. In Depression-era America, you could watch them crash and burn on the dance floor and it's these marathons of prolonged endurance that Kally Lloyd-Jones brings vividly centre-stage in Dance Derby. Everything kicks off in a whirl of naive determination.
No-one needs the nurse's reviving attentions, yet. The live band play Happy Feet, chantoosie (Nadine Livingstone) sings chirpy vocals and our five couples merrily trit-trot around her. They've heard the phoney-avuncular MC (Harry Ward) lay down strict rules - keep moving, basically - but all they've really grasped is there's a $1,000 prize for the last couple standing.
When you're flat broke, what have you got to lose? As each couple's story comes into the spotlight - made public for entertainment value, of course - it's pitifully clear: across the hours that stretch exhaustingly into weeks, they can lose all privacy, all dignity and tragically more besides. Grief and humiliation are, however, no reason to stop dancing.
The Company Chordelia cast are truly remarkable, offering up the researched reality of ordinary folk, young and not so young, at every step or weary unkempt slump.
Relationships emerge tellingly in dance and subtly, touchingly, in the songs that underpin their solo spots - You're Driving Me Crazy brings out one couple's anger issues, while the oldest couple's lifetime of togetherness is still a tender and romantic waltz. Who wins in the end? And was it worth it, for less than 10 cents a dancing hour?
Well worth it, however, for audiences on this tour, the schedule for which is available at www.chordelia.co.uk.
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