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Dancers
Sylvie Guillem
Michael Nunn
William Trevitt
Choreography
Russell Maliphant
Music
Torsion
Richard English
Two
Andy Cowton
Broken Fall
Barry Adamson
Lighting
Michael Hulls
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Sylvie Guillem
and the Ballet Boyz
Sadlers Wells
20 - 23 April 2005
The most exhilarating thing about this pairing of superstar Sylvie Guillem with the Ballet Boyz (aka George Piper Dances) Michael Nunn and William Trevitt is the trust and faith in each other as partners demanded by Russell Maliphant's daring choreography. All three dancers are consummate technicians, lending a solid foundation to the perilous lifts, throws and catches that punctuate the three pieces of this triple bill and which are increasingly becoming a defining characteristic of Maliphant's style. It is mesmerising, heart-in-your-mouth stuff, and probably as psychologically challenging for the dancers as it is physically demanding.
The first work Torsion has become Nunn and Trevitt's signature duet and features the rare dynamic of two heterosexual men enjoying an intimate and trusting bond. It is a good introduction to Maliphant's choreography and eases the audience into the ebb and flow, cause and effect, of his fluid chains of movement; the impulse of which frequently starts in an expressive hand before moving along the arm and finally through the head and torso in an almost serpentine gesture.
At times, isolated in their own boxes of light, Nunn and Trevitt appear like puppets whose strings have been suddenly relaxed, their movements dislocated and out-of-sync. At other times, they will be wrapped around one another like a handshake, displaying a close chemistry and responding almost intuitively to each other's every gesture. There is a particularly wonderful moment where Nunn and Trevitt engage in a slow-motion wrestle which is at once tender and forceful, a partnership of incredible strength but also of shared purpose and very measured, mutually understood movement.
Richard English's industrial score - the clickety-clack of railway tracks, planes swooshing, fireworks and even a tardis - builds to a crescendo with the introduction of a thunderstorm and the work moves into a more urgent register. Nunn dissolves the duet and exits the stage, leaving Trevitt to perform a more virtuoso solo of leaps and turns, perhaps energised by what has gone before, perhaps anguished. The technical highpoint - that is, the equivalent of the fabled 32 fouettés in Swan Lake - is a spectacular manège in which Trevitt outlines a circle of light on the stage by turning on his knees at breakneck speed and whipping the audience up into a frenzy of applause.
Two is a 12-minute solo that Maliphant originally created for his wife Dana Fouras (an ex-Royal Ballet dancer) but which has been extensively reworked on Sylvie Guillem. Here, Maliphant is preoccupied with the sculptural anatomical workings of the human body, and in this respect, Guillem is a more than suitable subject. A former gymnast, she has an extremely compact and muscular physique which marries a near-mythic flexibility with breathtaking artistry.
The solo feels very primordial, with Guillem emerging from the shadows as a sort of waking praying mantis to the sound of water dripping. With great care she begins to flex and arch her body, encaged by a single light source that plays on her contorting form. It is this striking interplay of pulsing movement, light and music which drives the piece and makes it so visually arresting. As momentum builds, all three forces become increasingly agitated: Guillem thrashes round in her imaginary box, the ends of her incredible extensions flashed upon by a strobing light to a dull electronic throbbing. Maliphant has created a truly wonderful showpiece for Guillem in Two, and she in turn, does his choreography great justice with her tremendously pliant body.
The final work Broken Fall brings the three dancers together for the first time in a specially commissioned piece. So carefully has it been choreographed by Maliphant on these three bodies and their various strengths and weaknesses, and so demanding and intimate is the partner work, that Guillem will only dance it provided Trevitt and Nunn are both available. The title suggests the daring of Maliphant's steps - and these three dancers have certainly been brought together because they are risk-takers technically - but also hints at the supportive partnership needed to execute such ambitious lifts and throws.
Sylvie's entrance from the shadows is so striking that she initially threatens to interrupt the closely danced dialogue between Nunn and Trevitt. However, the twists and turns of Maliphant's acrobatic choreography soon conspire to bind the trio together and they attack a spectacular (and probably bruise-making) sequence of partnered throws, lifts and tumbles with superb physical control. Despite the fact that all three remain in a state of fast-moving disequilibrium for much of the piece - Sylvie in particular is rarely upright - their dancing is firmly centred, betraying Maliphant's own training in contact improvisation, capoeira and t'ai chi.
Once again, this piece encapsulates Russell Maliphant and lighting designer Michael Hulls' collaborative approach to creating dance; Maliphant's choreography can look entirely different under a single glowing orb of warm light than it does under a flashing grid of clinical white light. Add to this Barry Adamson's similarly chameleon-like score - classical chords segueing into a lunar soundscape and dissolving into a jazzy saxophone - and you have a multi-dimensional, fully integrated performance.
Nina Miall
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