Jasmin Vardimon Company: Now – Sadler’s Wells East, London

Choreographer: Jasmin Vardimon

Celebrating 25 years, the Jasmin Vardimon company is one of the first to play at Sadler’s Wells East with its new, semi-anthological work Now, a compilation of the company’s greatest hits and new ideas reworked into a single 90-minute performance. Revelling in its use of props with ropes, confetti and flags supporting a complex collection of movement pieces that range from the dangerous to the absurdly comic and deeply romantic, the eight dancers offer entertainment value and skill in equal measure.

Expanding past glories, the choreography weaves particular themes and accents together across the show, opening with glorious flag-waving bravado as two dancers with fixed smiles present a rather militaristic happiness as the silky white material flutters through the air. As this blends into vigorous star jumps – an athletic effort by the performers – the sound of the flag rippling picks up the patter of their bare feet on the, as-yet, hardly used stage of Sadler’s Wells East. This pointed theatricality has a darker purpose, however, when the scene shifts again to an implied dictatorship. Here, violence and isolation for individuals see the now blackened flag whipped at a terrified dancer who is pursued by marching gangs and gun-toting mechanoids.

Vardimon’s purpose is to reflect on the different meanings of ‘now,’ asking the audience to think about the collective now of the show and the individual nows that we all inhabit, the currents and context that has brought us to Stratford. Philosophically, the Choreographer-Director also muses on the changing now as an ever-shifting moment in time, one of the only parts of the show given a vocal element as the dancers form an ongoing chain backsliding across the floor. And in the unfolding shifts between happiness and danger, togetherness and loneliness, Vardimon looks at cycles of history, of protest and activism, power shifts and optimistic possibilities that rotate through the performance.

There is some wonderful innovation here, most notably a tightrope walking illusion projected onto the stage wall and performed by the dancers lying on the floor who shift and squirm (a feature of the choreography throughout), seemingly balancing on top of the wobbly rope. Later two aid workers climb a set of stairs made of rope patterns on the floor, created using the same technique – two phenomenally inventive and highly skilled sequences that explore the difference between perception and reality, where what you see and what you know are challenged.

It all builds to a third act filled with storms of confetti in a red and white aesthetic designed by Guy Bar-Amotz and Vardimon all whipped up by more flags to create a storm. Anyone who has seen Jamie Lloyd’s Much Ado About Nothing will know that confetti is the most fashionable of props, and Now offers a visual aesthetic that is just as striking as dancers sprinkle it from their hands, provide bursts of activity and brush it into shapes before the militarism returns to spoil their fun. The message about how the now is simply wiped away is pointed though and effectively conveyed.

Performed by Evie Hart, Sean Moss, Hobie Schouppe, Juliette Tellier, Donny Beau Ferris, Risa Maki, Oliver Rumaizen and Andre Rebelo, the show has too many possible conclusions so the pacing loses focus in the final 15 minutes which could perhaps be tidied, but this anniversary piece has spectacle and meaning as well as seriousness and humour, which for now is all you need.

Runs until 8 March 2025