2009-03-01 Uprising/In Your Rooms @ The Roundhouse

Last night I saw Hofesh Schechter's choreographer's cuts of Uprising and In Your Rooms. I had seen Uprising before, some time ago, when it became a revelation of what contemporary dance could be like. Up until I had poo-pooed contemporary dance in favour of b-boying, thanks to my long running love of hip-hop. Uprising was fresh, in many ways brutal, and had an ending that made me laugh and start clapping furiously (Schechter does seem to like employing humour in his work).

Obviously this meant I was looking forward to seeing the piece again. Sadly, The Roundhouse is not the venue for dances performed on a stage, especially not when there is no downstairs seating. The atmosphere was almost identical to that of a music gig, complete with crushing crowd and incessant conversation up until the live music drowned out every notion of conversation (something that failed to happen at a Pete Murray gig I suffered through last year). In fact, the atmosphere was such that I said to Helena, my guide into the world of dance, that I bet there's a cheer when it starts. Sure enough, the audience cheered. Ugh. It's dance. It's not Oasis at Brixton Academy!

Uprising was performed first, and I noticed it almost immediately as the opening wasn't changed at all. While I enjoyed this performance, it lacked some of the energy that the original contained. That's not to say it was bad, the dancers were by and large excellent, with only the floppy haired blonde guy being a bit rough around the edges. The only problem I had with the piece was the ending, which didn't work anywhere near as well as it had before, which could have been down to the live music, but was more down to timing and execution. Ah well, you can't have everything I guess.

In Your Rooms was a different kettle of fish. I'd not seen it before, but there was something familiar about it, which I guess was down to Schechter including common moves within his work (a loping, crouched movement across the stage being one). Something about the performance bugged me. I'm not sure what, but I think it was the fact that the male dancers seemed better than the female dancers. Or, rather, the majority of the male dancers were better than the majority of the female dancers (blondie was still iffy). It was well executed, and nicely framed by the music being performed (the orchestra was unusual and excellent). But it was nowhere near Uprising in terms of quality.

Labels: dance

11:54 0 comments

2009-02-23 How to start a blog badly

Wasn't sure of what to put on as the first thing, so I'm going to mention a few things going on. Firstly, there's these...

... which I bought recently, and have been enjoying the comfort off (they are exceedingly comfortable). Despite them being a fairly bright red (weirdly matching Ipswich Town's away kit!) they don't go too badly with the pair of jeans I've finally started wearing. They're Puma Undefeated's, and their midness made me happy - I've gained a fetish for mids, with these and Vans skate mids being my trainers of the moment.

I'm still setting up my kit in my new place. My 360 is live and kicking (well, zooming, I played a lot of GRID over the weekend), but my drawing board is languishing on the floor still. Ho-hum.

12:27 3 comments