Choreographer: Julian Nichols, in collaboration with the company
Biologically, there is nothing particularly special about a birthday. There is no miraculous transformation at midnight that makes one a changed person from who they were the day before. The concept of marking how our life on the planet has survived another year around the sun is an entirely social construct.
Contemporary dance theatre company Bodies in Action explores all aspects of humanity in It’s My Birthday!, a piece that combines dance, clowning, poetry, and magic tricks. It commences with a surprise party, four members of the company jumping out from under a table to surprise the fifth, Chieh-hann Chang. From there, the party hats come out, and the photos get taken. But while everybody else pulls their best smiles for the party selfies, Chang’s character grimaces, and he has to be manipulated into positions suggesting fun. The impression is of a toddler’s birthday party that is really organised for the parents’ enjoyment.
That makes the segue into the next sequence jarring, as Chang, now alone on stage and playing (one hopes) an older character, finds a stray string hanging from the dangling decorations and attempts to strangle himself with it. It’s a deliberately traumatic moment, the suggestion that when everybody else is happy, it becomes easy to miss the one person who isn’t. And with a single party hat attached to the string that then ascends into the rafters, the implication that these instances can have tragic outcomes does hit home.
Subsequent scenes don’t hit the same sense of emotional intimacy. A sequence in which a voiceover talks about how the sense of “fitting in” is something that the speaker cannot really do, while the company illustrate the sensation of fitting together. Paxton Ricketts takes centre while the other four performers each lend one arm to extend one of his, resulting in a creature whose long limbs, now three times their length, reach the floor.
There is real happiness speckled throughout, too, often led by Naomi Chockler, whose solo clowning and accompanying non-verbal vocalisations elicit genuine smiles. That’s backed up by the occasional bit of stage magic. From a cake that is mysteriously larger than the cloche from under which it emerges and a candle that appears out of nowhere, to the most impressive reveal of three presents from an empty gift bag, the effects are both simple and fun.
The rest of the piece incorporates various styles, including frenetic dance set to EDM, some more spiritual and contemplative work, and a solo piece of poetry about birthday wishes, performed by Grace Malone. Despite some jarring tonal changes between set pieces, It’s My Birthday! hangs together well, with choreography and company work that impresses throughout. Using the social construct of birthday celebrations to explore multiple strands of humanity proves to be a fulfilling premise.
Reviewed on 23 May 2026
