I could honestly only conjure up a Top 10 dance shows of the year for 2024 (based on my own attendance) by including shows I thought were ok or mostly ok.
My dance viewing is still only just about 2/3 of what it was pre-Covid - for various reasons, mostly the lack of programming due to culture's death by a thousand cuts.
I would have seen significantly less if I hadn't made the effort to go to London.
I would have seen significantly more if I could still face the effort of going to Huddersfield and Liverpool etc. after work, as companies that visit there just don't come to Manchester (or Salford).
I have also now been watching dance for enough years to have a lower pain threshold for going to see shows I suspect are probably not my thing. (You just see more shows when you feel obliged to go and see 'everything'.)
THE BEST...
This is the fifth Igor x Moreno show I have seen and they continue to surprise and inspire. Karrasekare - Sardinian for 'carnival' - is one of the most excitingly distinctive shows I have seen for a very long time. Dark, rooted, disturbing, creative, impassioned, joyous, paganistic, thrilling. With an incredible cast of seven this show was the perfect mix of incredibly creative staging, a perfect soundscore (Edoardo Robert Elliot), darkly effective lighting (Joshie Harriette), costuming (KASPERSOPHIE), carefully-calibrated mayhem and nudity.1. Karrasekare |Igor x Moreno | The Lowry [Quays Theatre] | 22 May *****
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| Karrasekare - Igor x Moreno |
Igor x Moreno have never been afraid to allow their work space and time to grow and root in your consciousness - they are masters of sometimes slowly seemingly doing very little - and this gave Karrasekare an intoxicating and engrossing sense of place and mood and narrative that built incrementally into a show that felt ancient-inspired but thrillingly modern and transgressive. In 80 minutes they revealed the true extent of how anodyne and robotic much of what we are presented with on stage has become in the UK (and there are a multitude of reasons for this mostly to do with funding and precariousness). This was boldly and gloriously European.
2. From England With Love | Schechter II | HOME | 6 & 8 June, Riley Theatre, Leeds | 9 November *****
I've not seen anything from Hofesh Shechter since Double Murder in 2022 and this new work for Shechter II absolutely does not disappoint. The cast of new recruits are consistently distinctive and excellent, and every one of them would fit amazingly well into the main company. The work itself, which combines English classics with Hofesh's own characteristic beats, is fresh, dynamic and loaded with meaning. Shechter is a master at layering imagery within his own distinctive style using jump cuts and lighting - which is remarkably good - and From England With Love is an emotive and affecting trawl through tradition, sentimentality, optimism, realism, violence, our dark history and sadness that wordlessly speaks volumes. Saw it twice. Then went to see it again in Leeds...
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| From England With Love - Shechter II |
Third time of seeing this and I love it no less than before. The sound could have had more punch but this piece is still complex, layered, poetic, unflinching, affectionate, thoughtful and richly emotive. Good to see it on the Riley's low stage in a smaller theatre too.
3. Nobodaddy | Michael Keegan-Dolan / Teaċ Daṁsa | Sadler's Wells, London | 29 November *****
Never having seen a Michael Keegan-Dolan show I didn't love it's no surprise that that I was mesmerised and delighted by Nobodaddy. Hard to summarise, this dance theatre show combines drama, folk music - curated and performed by American musician Sam Amidon (and the cast) and electronic music, with physical theatre and joyous, freewheeling dance. Although seeming less rooted in Ireland - as was the case with previous shows MÁM and his bleak retelling of Swan Lake / Loch na hEala - this show draws on similar ideas of life and death, community, futility, joy, memory and fortitude: with the addition of bubbles and allusions to the 1975 Miami Showband killings during the 'Troubles' - an event I remember from my own childhood. Press reviews were mixed but they were wrong, as the standing ovation demonstrated.
4. MADDADDAM | Royal Ballet | Royal Opera House, London | 30 December *****
Having made the decision not to rule out the Royal Ballet as too far and too expensive by going to see Wayne McGregor's sublime Woolf Works in 2022 and having not really fancied The Dante Project (which I saw on TV anyway), I couldn't resist McGregor's London restaging of MADDADDAM, although my knowledge of Margaret Atwood is largely superficial.
McGregor's bold intention to condense three massive dystopian novels into three short acts (totalling 105 minutes) seems almost hubristic. If going to see this show I would strongly advise a minimum of research (the Royal Ballet Insights on the show, available online, does the job well). However, for all it's oddness and almost bewilderingly non-linear narrative in three overlapping acts, MADDADDAM is hugely entertaining and visually striking, full of McGregor's trademark and always gorgeous choreography, imaginative staging, lighting and projection, brilliant performances and with a new Max Richter score - which sounds terrific played live. It's arguably too cerebral and otherworldly to be emotionally engaging but it's not without emotive traction and the three relatively short acts carry enough punch and visual stimulation that it doesn't have time to drift towards boring. That Margaret Atwood joined McGregor on stage for the curtain call simply added to the magic. Maybe I should read some.
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| Wayne McGregor's MADADDAM - Royal Ballet |
5. Theatre of Dreams | Hofesh Shechter Company | Sadler's Wells | 12 October ****
Theatre of Dreams is in its opening sections one of the most deconstructed Hofesh Shechter shows I have seen - choreographically and musically. Once it settles down it starts to coalesce from being an endlessly-edited flipbook of familiar and not-so-familiar Shechter tropes into that satisfying 'celebration' of community and human resilience that characterises much of his work (to me). Visually stunning thanks to Tom Visser's lighting (and darkness) with the expected dynamic performances from the company, Theatre of Dreams is harder to reconcile intellectually than I unusually find his work but is still a powerhouse of a show with an emotional core. Maybe I needed to just let go: but I'm used to threading his imagery into a complex narrative that communicates a strong message about the world and his worldview. This show has more a Nutcracker odyssey where you're not quite sure of the journey or the return home. However, I'd see it again in a heartbeat.
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| Theatre of Dreams - Hofesh Shechter Company |
6. INK | Dimitris Papaioannou | Sadler's Wells, London | 1 March *****
More performance installation than dance in any real sense, INK was an extraordinarily beautiful and completely fascinating performance by Papaioannou himself - who proved to be very smart, witty and charming in the unusually engrossing post-show discussion - and a (mostly) naked Šuka Horn. Because the lip of the stage was raised to accommodate the pool in which the action took place and because much of the action was low-level a considerable amount of the action was infuriatingly/tantalisingly out of sight for the front few rows, resulting in much meerkat bobbing up and down by the otherwise engrossed audience to see what was causing the splashing. Personally, I was able to see enough that my imagination (and a bit of pre-research) seemed sufficient to fill in the blanks and it barely impacted on my enjoyment of this remarkable sensory experience. I greatly admired his production The Great Tamer and sadly missed (entirely my own fault) his last London show Transverse Orientation so I'm very happy to have made the effort to see INK.
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| INK - Dimitris Papaioannou |
THE REST...
- Triple Bill | VERVE | New Adelphi Theatre, Salford | 9 March ****
Good to see Verve for the first time since (I think) 2016. Matteo Marfolglia's A Field of Beauty was terrific; Joy Alpuerto Ritter's piece on family relationships with its bunches of flowers motif was a bit sentimental for my taste; and it was a great opportunity to see (LA)HORDE's distinctive 'Jumpstyle' er... style in People Used to Die: great energy and excitement and some terrific performances.
- UK Premiere Tour | São Paulo Dance Company | The Lowry [Lyric Theatre] | 12 March [Dance Consortium UK tour] ***1/2
Loved the choreography and staging but didn't really feel that I was witnessing greatness or striking originality. Beautiful nonetheless.
April
- Death Trap (Ben Duke Double Bill) | Rambert | The Lowry [Lyric Theatre] | 18-20 April ***
I enjoyed Cerberus with its witty sense of self and rather lovely movement flowing from life to death from stage right to stage left but found Goat overly-talky and ultimately far too meta to engage with. There were some nice moments - Conor Kerrigan was exceptionally good as the sacrifice - but it felt like a waste to have someone as good as Antonello Sangirardi in a non-dancing role. Ultimately it lacked energy, seemed overly-invested in its own knowingness and there wasn't anywhere near enough actual dancing - especially as Cerberus isn't a full-on dance extravaganza by any means. But that's what a Ben Duke double bill gets you. To be honest this show and Peaky Blinders just makes Rambert look uncertain of itself, just as they did before Benoit Swan-Pouffer took over.
May
- The Accountants | Keith Khan | Aviva Studios | 4-11 May 2024 [Keith Khan’s The Accountants takes real data from India and China and transforms it into a visual allegory for the stage [combining] dance from leading choreographers from China (Xie Xin) and India (Terence Lewis) with stunning visuals.] ***/****
For me, very much a piece of two halves (and this was the first of two previews before the World Premiere on 7 May - so it will be interesting to know what changes (if any) have been made. The first half was very data-heavy, quite visually overloaded, with the dancers very much interpreting the visuals and it moved at a pace but felt emotionally empty, interesting but hard to process (plus I don't really get the narrative thread of the conversation via text and voicemail of the two characters Liam and Aunty Kash. It seemed like an easy get-out/get-in for people who might find the rest of the content too inaccessible because dance is 'difficult'. The second half opened up the visuals, wound back on the data overload and let the dancers do what dancers do best: convey complex narratives in time and space. The music was less generic (and more interesting) and they unleashed the full power of that stage. The interval suggests it was conceived in two halves (otherwise why not just run for 90 minutes) but if the second part had been more of the first part it would have been a struggle.
(I don't think Factory International/Aviva Studios have much knowledge of or confidence in who their audience are - and they need a varied MIF-type audience on a regular basis all-year long, which was always going to be a big ask. So far their shows seem to flex between making things very accessible, not too 'difficult' and going for spectacle or appealing to the city's notoriously-cliquey art crowd - by literally putting them on the stage. And gigs. The kind of under-cooked, bold collaboration that makes the Festival itself both exciting and frustratingly unpredictable is increasingly infuriating as a year-round programming strategy.)
- LUZ | Equilibrio Dinamico Dance Company | Riley Theatre, Leeds | 11 May ***
- Triple Bill 2024 | Emergence | Waterside, Sale | 23 May ***
I rather enjoyed Noa Zuk's The Ladder, despite some ugly lighting and blah costumes. Miguel Altunaga's Dogma was also mostly to my taste despite similarly ugly lighting, indifferent costumes and too many music changes for a 17-minute piece. The lighting budget was clearly saved for Joss Arnott's SURGE, which was lit up like a cruise ship production of Six. An unnecessarily loud - and I'm not afraid of volume - neo-prog rock score and too many styles, too many solos and too much 'everybody runs on, everybody runs off' style choreography meant the evening ended with a piece that was difficult to listen to and hard to like. I believe the term is 'adrenalin-fuelled', but not in a good way.
June
- Korean Dance Festival - Cheok | The Lowry [Quays Theatre] | 3-4 June ****
Beautifully measured and rather sculptural. I hope this Korean exchange programme continues because it's a rare opportunity to see international dance work at LOWRY.
July
- A Chorus Line | The Lowry [Lyric Theatre] | 25 July *****
I love A Chorus Line although I'm famously not a big aficionado of musical theatre (there are about ten musicals I love). This production by Nicolai Foster, choreographed by Ellen Kane, which originated at Leicester's Curve, is an authentic, true to source, powerhouse. The staging is terrific, as is the cast and the small band, and the lighting managed to be highly effective and really impressive. All in all, I loved it. It was authentic, funny, moving, well-paced and the finale was an unexpected wow. It moves next to Sadler's Wells for a solid three-week run before resuming touring. Highly recommended.
- Unboxed | Linden Dance Company | Waterside Plaza, Sale | 27 July at 14:30 & 17:30 28 July at 14:30 & 17:30 [part of: REFRACT:24 - Free event] **
September
- TRAPLORD | Ivan Michael Blackstock | Aviva Studios | 26-29 September ***
This show won an Olivier Award for Best Dance Production in 2023 but for me it was critically lacking in significant dance content. What there was was terrific and excitingly soundtracked but the bulk of the show is incoherently episodic and relies on rap and spoken word to communicate ideas and intention, and I'm puzzled by a show that claims to challenge and explore stereotypes imposed on black men by effectively presenting exactly those stereotypical tropes and all the expected elements of hip hop theatre: black combat/paramilitary clothing, endless references to guns, aggression, conflict, hypermasculinity, computer games - even the inevitable shirtless ending.
The staging is terrific and expensive-looking and the sound was fantastically punchy, but it delivered far less that I hoped and with an inevitability to the content that became tedious. If they spent 90 minutes exploring these ideas through the medium of dance it could have delivered much more nuanced meaning, emotion and drama - but I remain unconvinced that hip hop theatre is capable of that (without drawing heavily on contemporary dance).
On another note, there is much written about the uniquely flexible spaces of Aviva Studios but Maxine Peake and Sarah Frankom's recent Robin/Red/Breast (in May) blatantly recreated the Royal Exchange Theatre's layout in the North Warehouse and Traplord seemed so similar to the stalls of the venue's own theatre that one wonders why they didn't just use that.
October
November
- Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake: The Next Generation | New Adventures | Lowry [Lyric Theatre] | 19-30 November ****
Not flawless by any means: questions about some of the choices only get louder with the years. But the swans remain terrific and the show as a complete package is a hugely entertaining and easy watch that still manages to pack an emotional punch.