ARE YOU DANCING?

Dance4

Presents

Nottdance

7-17 March 2013

Dance4 has been responsible for bringing some of the more intriguing works in that whole physical theatre/choreography margin to the Edinburgh Fringe. That they have a biannual festival in Nottingham, Nottdance, which is a cheeky pun on the location and a nice statement of the ambiguity surrounding contemporary dance. Even the slogan could be a rejoinder to some of the more experimental performers in the genre.

Nottdance has been going for 23 years - suggesting that the question of "what is dance?' has been a bother for longer than is usually realised. It is international in scope - guests include Alias from Switzerland, Niv Sheinfeld and Oren Loar from Israel, Maria Hassabi from the USA, Miguel Pereira from Portugal, Rodrigo Sobarzo from the Netherlands and Colette Sadler from the UK. And Paul Russ, the artistic director, is clearly committed to the fun of messing with definitions.

"All of the work in this programme tells us something different about the artform by pushing the boundaries of dance and performance," he says. "For the past 23 years, Nottdance has earned its international reputation amongst artists as a vital platform to present new ideas and for audiences this remains a festival that challenges perceptions whilst being playful and entertaining."

And while the dance will continue in traditional venues like the Nottingham Playhouse and the Lakeside Arts Centre, Nottdance is promising to take a trip around the city into shopping centres, night clubs and offices.

Sometimes, experimental work is best experienced as part of a festival. My own love of Live Art comes from having attended the old National Review of Live Art in Glasgow, and my appreciation of conceptual visual art is the result of seeing loads during Glasgow International. This is partially due to context - dropping in for a bit of light entertainment and getting a deconstruction of gender relationships is always a bit of a surprise, so a festival that announces that the work will be a challenge stops too many surprises of tone.