Author: The Reviews Hub - London

Director: Sasha Gefen  Six women stand on an unadorned stage. They vocalise, make noises, find places to initiate intricate percussive accompaniment, and move and dance and enchant. They do it together, improvising, picking up on each other’s contributions, finding harmonies. They make sounds that are magical, the interactive performances are amazing, and to cap it all, they ask their audience to tell stories that they go on to perform. Immersive doesn’t quite describe it; perhaps ‘inclusive’ is a better description. The six vocalists are outrageously competent, but anyone in the audience prepared to tell a story informs the performance just…

Choreographer: Armin Hokmi Armin Hokmi makes his Sadler’s Wells debut with the UK premiere of Shiraz, inspired by an arts festival which took place annually for ten years between 1967 and 1977 in Southern Iran. This is contemporary dance at its most hypnotic, a piece that doesn’t simply recall history but breathes new life into it through mesmerising choreography that exists in a realm of beautiful paradox. Shiraz is a choreography for seven dancers, weaving together a fabric of movements and gestures, and what emerges is genuinely compelling. The dancers move in synchronised randomness, dancing in unison yet somehow alone,…

Writer: Tanya -Loretta Dee Director: Sophie Ellerby Tanya-Loretta Dee’s debut full-length play is almost perfect, and it looks fantastic with Mydd Pharo’s set design and Cheng Keng’s lights. Loop tells the story of a young woman, Bex, who falls in love with a man she meets in her balloon shop in Peckham. They start dating, but it’s pretty clear to Bex’s flatmate, and indeed to the audience, that the man is married. Their affair is doomed from the start. In a clever introduction, at first the play appears to be set in Medieval times as Dee tells a story of…

Writers: Isabell Friis and Sunny Jie Liu Director: Sunny Jie Liu As the audience enters, a projection atop a box in the centre of the stage shows people recounting their mixed-heritage experiences. While this suggests the beginning of a documentary-led piece, Neither Here Nor There instead opens with a physical-theatre sequence introducing two central characters: one second-generation Chinese–Spanish, the other Danish–Nigerian–Italian. The story begins at the root of their identities, revisiting schoolyard bullying and the first realisation of being perceived as ‘other’. The production is ambitious in its use of multiple theatrical elements, including a recurring motif of balloons that…

Book, Music and Lyrics: Carleigh McRitchie and Bella Wright Director: Tara Noonan The Gardening Club, written by Carleigh McRitchie and Bella Wright during their final year at university, is built on a compelling concept. Set in 1960s America, it follows five young women who form a “gardening club” as a front for distributing illegal birth-control pills to unmarried women. The narrative is fictional, though inspired by the struggles many faced in accessing contraception at the time. The promise of the premise, however, doesn’t translate successfully to the stage. The book contains several noticeable gaps, and the dialogue is so on-the-nose…

Choreographer: Sharon Eyal Sharon Eyal’s new work Into the Hairy is an immersive experience; more than a dance, its use of contradictions, atmospheric intensity and collective individuality creates a compelling mix of rhythmic movements that you cannot tear yourself away from. Staged at Sadler’s Wells following a larger premiere in the Netherlands, this piece created for eight performers of the S-E-D Dance Company understands the creative alchemy that visual staging and the right music add to choreography and dance performance, and although it would be interesting to see this piece played for contrast against something else Eyal has made, this…

Writer: Simon Perrott Director: Gerald Armin 15-year-old Mark, like many teenagers, is filled with anxiety. He hasn’t found his place in the world, feels isolated, unloved and alone. He’s coming to terms with his emerging sexuality, though he’s not sure what that is: ‘How do I know I’m gay if I’ve never seen a vagina?’, he muses desperately. Worst of all, Mark is suicidal. Life, in all its complex and varied elements, is crushingly tough for Mark (Jamie Kaye). Bullied relentlessly at school, hating his twin sister, ambivalent to his parents, and truly friendless, his mind rages with thoughts that…

Artistic Director: CN Lester Director: Jamie Hale Since its creation in 2011, CN Lester’s Transpose nights have combined singing, performance art and smatterings of club culture featuring many trans and non-binary artists. Previous iterations of Transpose have felt more like cabaret evenings, showcasing individuals and their specific crafts. This latest iteration, Subverse, takes a different, more collaborative approach. Guest curator ILĀ oversees an evening in which sequences flow together, resulting in a 75-minute show that feels like a cohesive whole. It’s also much darker than previous iterations, both literally and figuratively. All the performances share a dimly lit stage of…