The Place

A generally inscrutable offering for the ninth evening of Resolution! The most transparent piece of the night, We Have Won, was propelled by an impressive, percussion-driven live soundtrack, and opened with four dancers circling a pool of light. Engaging in a competitive display of solos, each scrabbled for dominance with defiant undulations and strong extensions. As the movement became increasingly frenzied, dramatic lunges and daring duets built to an en masse rush for the front of the stage that resulted in a pile of tangled bodies. This was a deft and solid piece, with some strong choreography from Georgie Hay and Grace Sellwood, although the central concept lacked complexity.

In contrast, Think Outside was an enigma. A host of intriguing elements framed a not-quite-graspable idea: a mesmerizingly simple, and compressed, opening floor sequence by choreographer Marc Saad; a recurring motif of a forehead-to-floor movement, implying religious supplication, reinforced by eerie music from Ayshay, with strains of the Islamic call to prayer; a chilling scene featuring dancer Joe Wild kneeling in a spotlight, back to the audience, seemingly waiting for a judgment to be meted out; a violent duet in which Wild, passive, is dragged across the stage by Saad, concluding with both dancers seated side by side in discord. Something about unthinking acquiescence versus independent thought? Perplexing, but nonetheless affecting.

A downpour was the most flummoxing contribution of the evening and aptly named for its bombardment of input that confused rather than resolved. A woman rifling through old papers comes across something forgotten that makes her stop short, pre-empting a tumultuous monologue that scores two complementary solos. The aim seemed to be to mirror the complexity (chaos) of thought through movement, and it’s interesting that the dancers are immobile during a reading of the ‘factual’ account of a memory. However, despite a strong ending, the connection between the words and the choreography is not always apparent and the overall effect was one of distraction.

Rachel Donnelly

Black Gecko Dance have drawn on the myth of Pheidippides, the original marathon runner, to make We Have Won, a tale of pushing the limits that feels like a gang of alpha females in a race for supremacy. First they prowl in the spotlight, eyes blazing with challenge, before letting loose with big swoops of limbs and dramatic falls, while live musicians provide the thump and riff to back them up. The problem is there's just not enough raw power in the performances to propel this to the next level. Although they work hard, the dancers are lacking the explosive energy that would make this piece convincing – it needs a bit more punch. More like a playground scrap than an all-out battle.

Marc Saad's Think_Outside follows a similar crescendo, in this case from movement that's understated and inward – long peels of the arms, body folding into the floor ­– to expansive leaping and reeling. But while Saad's sweat is flying, Joe Wild kneels quietly in the centre, a recurrent image that suggests prayer or meditation, stillness against the noise. Perhaps the idea of a mind/body, conscious/subconscious duality is at play here, which is intriguing. It's not a bad piece, but neither does it quite soar.

Jindeok Park's A Downpour raises some interesting questions about composition. Three people doing stuff simultaneously on stage does not a composition make, and that's what we're initially faced with: actor Grainne Keenan reading a jumbled text while Park and the striking Martha Pasakopoulou move in a disjointed, improvisatory fashion behind her. So far, so 'experimental'. But when the text finally coalesces into something narrative, and we realise we've been listening to mixed up fragments of a sane story all along, we have to ask: did we miss the method in the movement too? An answer isn't readily forthcoming.

Lyndsey Winship

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