Choreographers: Wang Yeu-Kwn (Beings), Lia Rodrigues (Encantado)
2025 has seen the introduction of two new biennially-awarded dance prizes from Sadler’s Wells: The Rose International Dance Prize for established choreographers and the Bloom Prize for emerging choreographers. With the shortlisted works for each prize performed on stage in the run-up to the final awards ceremony, Saturday saw the last entrants to each category.
In the Lilian Baylis Studio, Taiwan-based Wang Yeu-Kwn’s Bloom-nominated Beings starts with a large sheet of rice paper curled up around the torso on Wang’s upper body, like a giant origami lily. The paper expands as it hits the floor, rustling outwards until fellow dancer Lee Ying emerges from its folds.
Together, the pair stands chest to chest, hands behind each other’s backs, either miming actions or accentuating the rhythms of The Tennessee Waltz. At other times, they lean on each other, forming a physical representation of the Chinese character 人, which means “person” or “human being.”
At such moments, when the rice paper forms the floor of the dancers’ work, their bodies are streaked with black calligraphy ink. At other times, the paper again crumples up around Wang. While the piece is nominally about humans and human identity, one is reminded of the life cycle of a butterfly, from egg to caterpillar and then wrapped into a chrysalis, before emerging once more and then dying.
The minimalism of the dance moves, allowing the sound of the crumpling rice paper to dominate the audio elements of the piece, offers a meditative mood to the whole piece. Its final moments, which take advantage of the otherwise blacked-out space to incorporate a piece of stage magic, provide a mystical conclusion that matches the piece’s mood.
Over on Sadler’s Wells’s main stage, Lia Rodrigues’s entry for the Rose prize initially starts with a similar preparation of material that will take up the dance stage. In place of rice paper, Encantado starts with the slow unrolling of multiple vibrantly-coloured cloths. Over 140 blankets, from animal print to primary-coloured blocks, are gradually unrolled in complete silence. Then, slowly, each of the 11 performers takes turns to crawl naked across them.
One by one, they either disappear underneath the blankets or pull them over their heads, all in silence. It is some 20 minutes into the hour-long piece before any sound kicks in, with a rhythmic ticking eventually building up into some native Brazilian chants.
The dancers occasionally seem to be imitating animals and, at other times, just celebrating the pleasure of dance. Others seem to revel in flashes of nudity. The actions move between group dances and solo pieces. Still, the repetitive looping of the audio, which continues until fading out at the end of the hour, counters any sense of progression.
While Encantado offers colour and fast movement in contrast to Beings’ more considered, introspective tone, the earlier piece of the two works is the one that remains in the memory.
Later in the evening, the winners of the two prizes were announced. Christos Papadopoulos’ LARSEN C is the inaugural winner of the Rose International Dance Prize, with Stav Struz Boutrous picking up the Bloom Prize for Sepia. Saturday’s performances may not have been deemed worthy of winning, but they do indicate that the prizes for celebrating the best of international choreography are a welcome addition to the dance calendar.
Reviewed on 8 February 2025
The Reviews Hub Score
Mixed material
