Choreographers: Gabriela Carrizo, Jiří Kylián, Crystal Pite and Simon McBurney
Nederlands Dans Theater returns to Sadler’s Wells with NDT1, three pieces choreographed by Gabriela Carrizo, Jiří Kylián, Crystal Pite and Simon McBurney, a combination that proves to be a highly theatrical night and not just owing to McBurney’s presence among the creatives. There is an attention to storytelling and particularly to the visual effects of these performances that is rarely so accomplished in dance presentation, creating immersive and highly atmospheric mini productions.
First to the stage is Gabriela Carrizo’s La Ruta, first performed in 2022. This dramatic and absurdist piece takes place on a lonely stretch of road where a number of disconnected souls are variously thrown around, drawn to and unable to escape from this stretch of tarmac – are they all victims being evoked once more or is there some other connection? The visual effect of this extraordinary 35-minute piece is compelling and utterly cinematic, shrouded in shadow and mystery with pops of vivid yellow and red with traffic sounds whooshing by with blaring horns. It is a contemporary noir designed by Amber Vandenhoeck that makes space for Corrizo’s intriguing storytelling and choreography.
The dancers are jelly-limbed, their bodies bent and flopping as though lifeless, but Carrizo makes them stumble and spin at very high speed, tumbling and turning with frenzied exactness that is almost impossible to believe. The strangeness of the story is fascinating, the pull of the road, the particular spot that seems to control anyone who goes near it and the magnetic effect is has on the audience and the dancers sets a high bar for this trilogy of works.
The second piece in NDT1 is Kylián’s Gods and Dogs which also incorporates some impressive visual design. Tonally and structurally, this is a complete contrast to Carrizo’s work, a series of duets and solos performed in a tag team style but lacking a clear narrative to draw the pieces together and give it shape for the viewer. What it does have is the most mesmerising undulating curtain made of thousands of silvery-gold threads that move in shimmering waves behind the performers, the hem of each strand dancing. The effect of the whole thing, designed by the choreographer, gives momentum to the second half of a dance that contains beautiful movements but struggles for purpose.
No such problem exists for Pite and McBurney’s pointed collaboration that marries the human effects on the environment with the extinction of thousands of species of animal and plant due to overhunting or changes to the landscape that melts glaciers or dries up seas. Figures in Extinction [1.0] uses the model of a scientific textbook to present a series of beautiful creatures from packs of caribou to a single warbler, all given life by the large ensemble that balances the beauty of creatures like the Ibex in which the performer uses long-horned costume made for their arms to create the majesty of the beasts, with the sadness of a extinct type of cheetah pulled together from scattered bones, a puppet imitation of the creature that was.
The theatricality that McBurney brings adds a real dynamic to this final work in which Pite choreographs to words as well as music, drawing in jaunty moments including the exaggerated emphasis of a climate denier as well as creating a menagerie of lost creatures, natural formations and foliage that puts Akram Khan’s recent Jungle Book here to shame.
In some ways NDT1 offers three unrelated pieces from choreographers working across quite different styles but the skill of this company along with the attention to visual presentation makes for a sometimes challenging but engaging production.
Runs until 22 April 2023
