Dance International Glasgow 2015

A major new celebration of dance for Glasgow and Scotland will take place from Friday 24 April to Saturday 6 June

Venues across the city host over 40 events across 6 weeks, including 6 world premieres plus a host of UK premieres, family shows, workshops, exhibitions and talks

The world premiere of Barrowland Ballet’s hotly-anticipated new show Whiteout on 29th and 30th April. Created by Tramway Associate Artist Natasha Gilmore (Glasgow Girls, Tiger, The River)Whiteout is a deeply personal dance theatre show bi-racial relationships and features new music by Luke Sutherland (Mogwai).

Two world premieres from Tramway Associate Artist Marc Brew. In For Now, I am… (26th & 27th May) Marc creates an intimate solo- for the first time since his life-changing car accident in 1997-  whilst Exalt (24th & 25th April), created by Marc in association with Scottish Ballet and Indepen-dance 4 promises to rock the boundaries of ballet

World premieres from some of the brightest and most intriguing talents in contemporary dance, including Tramway associate artist Ultimate Dancer’s look at the alternative dark reality of occult ritual in Holy Smoke (15th & 16th May) and Colette Sadler’s Geist (5th & 6th May), a celebration of subverting the relationship between the living and the non-living.

The Tramway, Sadlers Wells and Dance4 co-commission of Jérôme Bel’s iconic and award winning The Show Must Go On from the renowned Candoco Dance Company (22nd & 23rd May)

From Lithuania, the UK premiere of Home Trip (15th & 16th May) by Low Air Urban Dance Theatre- a dazzling fusion of street dance, music, theatre and literature focusing on the relationships between parents and their adult children.

Double bills from some of the top names in contemporary dance, including Aakash Odedra’s Murmur and Ink (29th & 30th May), charting his relationship with his childhood dyslexia and his grandmother’s tattoos respectively and legendary performer-provocateurs Jonathan Burrows and Matteo Fargion revisiting their classic pieces Both Sitting Duet and The Cow Piece together with new show Body Not Fit For Purpose (25th & 26th April).

Hong Kong City Contemporary Dance Company with their interactive video installation Hyperchoreography (24th April – 10th May), which allows the viewer to control the dancers’ movements, plus Jumping Frames (1st & 2nd May), showcasing the best in dance made specifically for the screen in China.

Sadler’s Wells exhilarating new dance show for children Varmints (1st May), based on the award-winning book by Helen Ward

Free community events to get everyone up and dancing, including the DIG Day of Dance (15th May) taking everything from tea dances to hip hop to community centres across the city.

Professional development workshops and discussions for practitioners at all levels with some of the industry’s leading names

“Dance International Glasgow is the new biennial dance event for Glasgow and Scotland” said Councillor Archie Graham, Chair of Glasgow Life. “DIG, produced by Tramway, is a growing collaboration between dance artists, promoters, venues and communities. From the end of April right through to the first weekend of June, venues across Glasgow will host new work ranging from ballet to Lithuanian street dance, from Scottish Dance Theatre to spectacular children’s dance from Sadlers Wells, from having your first go at contact improvisation or kathak, to accepting an invitation to dance from Jo Fong. DIG is over a month of events that will make you laugh and cry, question and be challenged – and dance!”

Janet Archer, CEO at Creative Scotland, said: "We congratulate Tramway and Glasgow Arts on producing Dance International Glasgow, a new and inspiring dance festival responding to an escalating growth in interest in dance by people of all ages. It’s great to see such an imaginative programme launching this first festival with many outstanding performers, artists and organisationstaking part, including internationally significant Scottish dance artists working across different choreographic styles.”




DIG will have a particular focus on inclusive dance as an evolving art form, including the two world premieres from Marc Brew, the first performance of Jérôme Bel’s superb The Show Must Go On by a mixed ability company and Luke Bell and Jo Verrent’s award-winning exhibition on how audiences react to bodies that are ‘different’ Take Me To Your Bed (16th May – 6th June). In Dialogue (23rd & 24th May) will be two days of investigation by influential artists, practitioners and innovators from the worlds of dance, disability and performance, aiming to advance the level and clarity of artistic and critical dialogue within the inclusive dance sector.

Tigers

During Barrowland Ballet’s Tiger, there was a moment that expressed the devotion of the parent to the child: as the child danced around the space, the mother and father presented their bodies to her feet, preventing her from ever touching the ground. It recalled the description in The Golden Bough of ancient leaders, who were never allowed to touch the earth. At the same time, it was moving, a symbolic choreography of extreme care and love.

Later on, when the three dancers were seized by wildness – represented by the male dancer dressing in bright orange and teasing the women into abandon, I thought ‘I really must stop hating myself.’ At the risk of turning into a moist-eyed critic, sentimental and trivial, Tiger was a reminder of why I bothered chasing performance a decade ago. For a brief moment, the bullshit of my daily life disappeared. I was confronted, directly, by sincerity. For a brief sliver of time, my ego had a rest from parading itself and I recognised something better than showing off in front of women.

Of course, if I were doing my job, I would be complimenting the set-designer of Tiger: the three dancers are contained within a mesh of rope and metal, sometimes comforting, sometimes caging.  I’d be saying how well Jade Adamson (child), Kai-Wan Chuang (mother) and Vince Verr (father and tiger) danced – and when they kicked, they kicked in time and they kicked together. I might even mention the accessible and clear choreography from Natasha Gilmore, working from Robert Alan Evans’ writing.

And if I were one of those critics who don’t like to judge, I’d probably retell the plot – nuclear family, oppressed by the conformity of their routine, find liberation through a calculated application of wild tiger energy. I certainly saw the beauty in the detail, as the parental relationship decayed whilst trying to provide for their playful daughter.

But here’s the rub: the emotional experience struck me as far more telling. When I am teaching young critics, I insist that a ‘five star’ review can only be justified if the writer had some kind of epiphany during the performance. I tell them that the work has to have changed their life in some way. It is a high standard, but the alternative is that ridiculous star-inflation that happens during the Fringe.

I did have an epiphany during Tiger. I also saw my life reflected in the misery of the parents – I have no children but I do have a routine that crushes me. My personality was stripped away, exposed and revealed as a form of armour that disguises my cynicism – born from my failures – and protects my emotional vulnerability. It might have been the moment when the tiger switches off the lights and spins in the darkness, or the terror of the mother when she is flung outside of the cage. At several points, I observed Tiger without my habitual filters. No long words, no complaints, and no clever analysis: I saw and I felt. The stupidity of the stand-up comedy routine I call my personality was evident.

Fifteen minutes after the production ended, I found an audience and was at it again: ranting about a review that I have decided embodies the intellectual cowardice of the modern critic. A quick amusing anecdote at my own expense – this one about how I was lecturing my fellow students on the subjectivity of critical opinion (‘The interpretation is always about the critic’s obsessions and not the play itself,’ I opined. There was almost no irony in my voice when I added that every male character in the script was a sex-pest).

I wish that Tiger had changed my life, that the thrill of religious conversion did happen during a show – and then encouraged me to change my ways. I have epiphanies with the same regularity that I gorge on chocolate. But they stick about as well as my daily determination to eat more healthily.

Anyway, Tiger is amazing. It is paired with a shorter version, Tiger Tale, which is aimed at younger audiences (but I don’t think that works so well – it feels edited, and not adapted). It’s got a cool soundtrack by Kim Moore – from sinister rock guitar to flowing strings and banging techno – and Fred Pommerehn’s set design is jam-packed with relevant props and scenery.

I know that critics often write praise that ends up on posters. Here’s my contribution. Tiger deconstructed by personality through sheer force of beauty and exact technique: Gilmore is possessed of a choreographic genius that is light in touch but serious in purpose. The occasional flashes of wit are accompanied by a genuine insight into the challenges of relationships: love becomes both admirable and controlling, and deft sequences expose the cost of selfless devotion. Just fucking go and see it.

Burning Bright...

Aside from a natural, human sympathy and a considerable aesthetic respect for their artistry, I don’t feel any particular affinity for the generation of Scottish theatre makers currently on the rise. That isn’t to say that their work isn’t powerful  - Stef Smith’s Cured is a fast-paced and unexpected comedy, making demands on the performers that allows them to respond with appropriate pathos and humour. Indeed, the emphasis on New Writing – found in the Tron, in Glasgay!’s annual programme, at the weekly Play, Pie and Pint sessions, upstairs at The Playwright’s Studio and across various university departments – has given Scotland a distinctive crop of contemporary authors. 

And while I maintain a lofty critical eye, I often find reflections of my own experience in the sharpest lines and most doomy dialogues: despite the attention given in national newspapers to London’s theatre, it is not parochial to suggest that Scottish performance is in rude health.

Both Smith’s Cured and Natasha Gilmore’s Tiger are strong examples of this confident culture. Although Tiger is paired with a truncated ‘children’s’ version (Tiger Tale) that is little more than an edited version that invites the audience on-stage at the end, it is emotive and fluid enough to stand alongside the best choreography in Europe. A simple tale of how a nuclear family is redeemed by the arrival of a wild, unpredictable energy, it impresses through the precision of the three dancers movements and the telling symbolism of Gilmore’s choreography. Cured is a generous romp through one woman’s flirtation with the ‘ex-gay’ movement, allowing Smith to reveal her smart wit and deft characterization – as well as a mastery of structure, which allows her to throw in a twist and happy ending.

The magic in Cured and Tiger comes from similar attention to detail, although Cured is an archetypal well-made scripted play and Tiger is contemporary dance. Both Smith and Gilmore are able, in a tiny slither of time, to capture a recognisable and resonant scenario: in Tiger, when the child dances around the stage on her parents’ bodies, never touching the ground, Gilmore expresses the devotion of the family in a direct, poetic image; in Cured, apparently trivial conversations about TV comedy The Golden Girls provides an important connection for the mother to accept her daughter’s sexuality.

The beauty and compassion of these moments eloquently express the artists’ profound humanist concern. This compassion runs through both works. If a play at Glasgay! is never likely to present a sympathetic ex-gay evangelist, Smith avoids setting up a predictable God-bothering straw woman. Gilmore’s unhappy couple, meanwhile, are not blamed or caricatured. This insistence on the worth of the individual is how both artists connect to their audiences – although Gilmore has a more detached presence as choreographer than Smith as writer, and dance encourages a more abstract interpretation.

The experience of watching Tiger and Cured is to be held by confident, clever creators: the combination of passion and intelligence they manifest might qualify them for the over-used and rarely explained category of ‘genius.’

Yet, this is not my theatre: Tiger comes closest, as it slices open the conformity of the married couple to reveal their heartache, caused by the exclusion of the wild in their domestic security. But resolution triumphs, and the human is the measure of the resolution. Even here, the wild is welcomed only as a tool towards domestic reunion. I am a determined anti-humanist, happier in the absurdity of Beckett or the uncomfortable acceptance of the strange found in Les Ballets C de la B. There is another theatre, perhaps unfashionable and maybe discovered in the interruptions of Forced Entertainment’s The Coming Storm that better reflects my world and temperament.

This could present a problem to my authority as a critic – if anyone was bothered to read this far. Since I am uncomfortable with their conclusions, I am tempted to recall Plato’s complaint and accuse both works of being dishonest. The discomfort is purely philosophical, because I left the performances happy, smiling and impressed. I’d argue that, if anything, my rejection of their content makes me, if not objective, a more impartial critic. The substance is not what makes me appreciate Tiger, but its expression. Equally, my applause for Cured is not at the romantic finale, but at the skill of Smith’s writing.