his venue  |
| Animal adventures |
Dance Company Wales
Dance Company Wales comes to Newcastle’s Dance City. This venue is a bit of a hidden gem as it has the largest Dance programme outside London. Here you can see the best work from the most innovative companies for a quarter of the price you would pay in the capital.
The latest performance from the National Dance Company Wales was no exception. With two performances by two separate artistic directors we were looking forward to yet another visual treat.
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| Sensual sensation |
The first piece – Profundis – was a playful exploration of dance as a language with motifs and stories. There were lots of animals in it, funny penguins, prowling lions, knuckle dragging apes. The dancers even speak, which doesn’t happen much in dance performance. There was a bit of a story at the end where the animals seemed to feature in some sort of narrative to do with the elephant. In the after show talk we learned that this piece was more about challenging the dancers and capitalising on their individual styles and personalities.
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| Profundis |
Dance City – The Green House
After the interval it was time for Caroline Finn’s, The Green House We were gripped from the very start. The set was a sixties house with a green interior. Its fireplace and G plan sideboard is lit with green light and inhabited by crazy green characters. Fake grass is on the floor and the walls and in the frame of the mirror. The piece is very surreal indeed. Apparently it is inspired by the style of David Lynch movies. Our dancers wrestle with boredom, anxiety, exclusion, confusion, total anguish, and at some points, it seems, housework!
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| The Green House |
Dance Company Wales – a surreal masterpiece
There were lots of plays on themes like being outside looking in, being trapped inside and things going on behind closed doors. Lots of jerky repetitive movements created a continuous feeling of being on edge, of comedic madness. I loved Matteo Marfolglia in his green skirt. He continually polishes his green apples and puts them in a bowl before taking them all out again. He then puts them methodically away in the cupboard and then does it all again. All with a sort of startled rabbit in the headlights look on his face.
Musical madness
The ideas and the movements all tumble in on top of one another. Mogadon suburbia meets a kind of surreal domestic land of Oz. It was Desperate Housewives on LSD. We loved it! The music was tremendously atmospheric. The 1959 classic A Summer Place creates that idyllic dreamy fifties feel.
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| Trapped in the Green House! |
The multi national dancers were exceptional and they really got the opportunity to contribute to these pieces and their personalities really shone through. What a great job getting to dance and play and create every day, lucky people!
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| Who’s in da house? |
Check out the rest of the Dance City programme here Dance City Performances