4 STARS. The BalletBoyz's latest production contains the usual whirlwind of innovation and athleticism we've come to expect from the talented dance troupe, says Richard Davies
Panayiotis Sinnos
“Real men wear tights” is the slogan on the tee-shirts and hoodies at the busy merchandising stall. Burly bouncers with earpieces check the contents of handbags and man-bags. A palpable sense of excitement hangs in the air as the crowds arrive half an hour early to claim their seats. Clearly, this is no ordinary night at the Richmond Theatre.
The cause of all this Friday night fervor is that the BalletBoyz are back in town. Don’t be confused by the title Fourteen Days. The show is on at Richmond for two nights only, before normal service resumes with the start of Panto season and a month long run of Aladdin.
In case you’re wondering who or what are the BalletBoyz, they are the creation of former Royal Ballet leading dancers, Michael Nunn and William Trevitt (both of them “OBEs”, don’t you know?) Originally the title for their documentary, the pair co-founded the company in 2000 and have now recruited a team of 11 young, male dancers to stage innovative modern choreography. Check out the photos online: the Boyz have the bodies of Olympian gods and the faces of fashion models. If Simon Cowell did ballet, and thank goodness he doesn’t, he could only dream about creating something like this.
The first half of the show, Fourteen Days, is a set of four eclectic dance works that premiered in October at Sadler’s Wells. Each is the result of a two week collaboration with four different choreographers on the theme of balance and imbalance.
The first dance by Javier De Frutos entitled “The Title is in the Text” takes the theme most literally, with ten dancers wearing boiler suits and a giant seesaw as the main prop. Part gymnastic display, part physics demonstration, the dancers experiment with weight, levers and movement. There are some thrilling moments, as when a single dancer free falls off the edge of balance to be caught silently in mid air, or when the dancers appear to pass through each other’s bodies as they cross paths on the beam.
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At times they dance as one body with one mind; a slight push by one causes nine dancers to collapse in perfect sequence, like dominoes. The harsh industrial music or should I say “deconstructed soundscape” was composed by Scott Walker of Walker Brothers fame, who is clearly still going strong, decades after being one of Bowie’s early influences.
Next up was “Human Animal” by Iván Pérez, with music by Joby Talbot. Six dancers dressed in naught but their undies and some gorgeous floral party shirts (where can I get one?) pranced, trotted and paced around a circle, like an equestrian dressage event. But as the music lifted, so did they, like birds in flight, limbs stretching to ride on air thermals. I found this dance the most poetic and original.
“Us” by Christopher Wheeldon was a highly erotic duet, with a soundtrack of rich string sounds from Keaton Henson, stunning and beautiful to watch. The final dance “The Indicator Line” was by none other than Craig Revel Horwood, Strictly Come Dancing’s famously acerbic judge, who is also a leading west end choreographer. I found this slightly difficult to fathom: it clearly had a strong narrative involving one dancer in a military redcoat bullying all the others – I just didn’t understand it. With the highly percussive soundtrack from Charlotte Harding and all the military foot stomping, it sometimes resembled a clog dance, but maybe that was the idea.
After the interval, the BalletBoyz performed “Fallen”, a dance created for the company by Russell Maliphant in 2013 with music by Armand Amar. This highly accomplished work has a delightful opening sequence of circular movements followed by solo and duet work with powerful Brazilian capoeira themes and a highly moving finale back in the circle. I loved it and so did the audience.
This was a wonderful evening and if you ever get the chance to see BalletBoyz, you should jump at it. One word of warning, if you have sensitive ears, avoid the front stalls. During the interval, I talked to a chap sitting in row “A” right in front of the speakers who was stuffing his ears with tissue under a beanie cap in the hope of surviving the second half without hearing damage.
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