Divya Ash Dance Theatre Affluenza
Patricia Okenwa Night Flowers
Curved Space The Nature of Things
In keeping with the diverse nature of the season, the final evening of Resolution! 2010 presented the audience with a visual mélange of street dance, film, projection, acting, and even a smattering of Contemporary dance.
Opening in a suitably festive style, which sadly was not followed through to the end of the evening, was Move Like Michael Jackson star Ash Mukherjee, with his live music, dance and video extravaganza Affluenza. Joined by equally charismatic dancers Tom Roache, Daniel Ovel and the beautiful Ni Made Pujawati, Mukherjee combines street dance, break dance and Bharatanatyam to create an amusing choreographic comment on today's society. Whilst occasionally Mukherjee's intention is lost in a sea of projected subtitles, the artful and enthralling performers never lose the audience's attention or affection.
Sandwiched between two works containing a myriad of creative ideas, Patricia Okenwa's Night Flowers was refreshingly simple. A piece of contemporary choreography in its purest form, Rambert dancer, Okwena's solo is a faultless display of good technique and execution. Clean, efficient movement and the extending of powerful limbs are interspersed with shivers and twitches of madness. Prowling around the stage, tormented by an unseen foe to a repetitive, incessant rhythm Okwena is at once composed and captivating.
Completing the evening in what seemed more of a lesson in science than dance, The Nature of Things by Esther Shanson is a mix of drama and digital media, with a dance supplement. Whilst both the actors and dancers are to be applauded for their focused and technically adept performances, the work as a whole lacks coherence. Shanson's choreography is promising but overshadowed by the many other elements of this epic, educational work.
A fittingly eclectic end to an eclectic season, in the words of Mukherjee as confetti poured on to the stage, ‘fin.'
Jennifer Teale
Resolution! 2010 closed in a blaze of big ideas sparked by fine dancing although ultimately, with one exception, the laudable artistic ambitions on display eventually went up in smoke.
Choreographer Ash Mukherjee is a prodigiously gifted performer keen to fuse classical Indian dance with other styles. But in Affluenza, fashioned for Divya Ash Dance Theatre and loosely based on British psychologist Oliver James' book, his creative blend of aesthetic impulses and commercial instincts didn't gel. Featuring ironic snippets of projected text, the show strove to be a critique of the kinds of acquisitive behaviours that have helped plunge the global economy into meltdown. Three characters were introduced individually to the pulsating rhythms of Oded Kafri's live drumming (backed throughout by Sacha Silva's pre-recorded music). Daniel Ovel, cast as ‘The banker,' executed some jaw-dropping, floor-based b-boying while floppy-haired Tom Roache, as a supposed teenage sex addict, tore into a bodypopping routine. Ni Made Pujawati, as a wild-eyed socialite, was the show's weak link. Mukherjee, in a stylish greatcoat, was billed as ‘The doctor' but came across more like a puppet master overseeing events that culminated in what was meant to convey a sort of collective transcendental redemption. I was left with a feeling of unrealised potential.
Moonlighting from Rambert, Patricia Okenwa is a strong, strikingly leggy thoroughbred of a dancer. Despite dramatically coloured lighting, stage fog, a heavy-duty electronic soundtrack and her constant, mask-like expression of spooked impassivity, I failed to identify the big idea motivating the solo Night Flowers. Although Okenwa, clad in a loose smock, threw sharp shapes that hinted at inner tensions I haven't a clue what her troubled superwoman sought. She's an admirable mover, but the piece itself was an empathy-free zone.
By far the evening's most accomplished work was Curved Space's The Nature of Things, a tribute to three breakthrough British female scientists in the guise of a play with movement. Choreographer/writer Esther Shanson also played one of them. Was it her or director Hanna Berrigan's inspired idea to provide the protagonists with one dancer or, in Shanson's case, an aerialist to embody the biochemical or molecular problems with which each woman wrestled? The ending was a tad limp. Still, Shanson and company managed to make a dry-sounding subject engaging and fun.
Donald Hutera