You can not go improper with a Romeo and Juliet story. This one isn’t impressed by Shakespeare however South African author RL Peteni’s 1976 novel Hill of Fools, which has the same set-up: two warring villages and two lovers caught in between. You may inform from the off this gained’t finish properly.
Choreographed by Mthuthuzeli November, Fools is about in a South African township – a minimal however efficient set has a avenue lamp, telegraph strains and a corrugated steel wall. The Thembu and Hlubi villagers, represented by a slightly totally different color palette for his or her costumes, at first present a jovial, teasing rivalry. However the union of the central couple (Harris Beattie and Sarah Chun) is an excessive amount of for the forceful ego of Antoni Cañellas Artigues, the self-styled protector of Chun’s character. He eats up the stage with hungry leaps and bristling aggro.
Beattie and Chun have you ever rooting for the loved-up couple, their dances playful and conversational till a kiss that’s so intense it sends Chun’s quivering leg all the best way to the sky. Beattie’s dancing is especially dreamy as he pushes by means of the area with full-bodied richness, relatively than balletic politeness.
This is perhaps November’s finest piece but by way of stagecraft. The ultimate dramatic beats may very well be a little bit clearer and extra highly effective, however he reveals nice mastery in dealing with the busy crisscrossing of a number of our bodies, weaving and dashing and dancing by means of the area, protecting the power buzzing. The choreography, fused with influences from ballet, modern and South African dance, is stuffed with sample, rhythm and moreish momentum.
Fools is the fruits of a triple invoice. Elsewhere there’s 5 minutes of enjoyable from choreographer Kristen McNally in Victory Dance, a trio together with visitor dancer Joe Powell-Primary, who makes use of a wheelchair, spinning, grinning and brimming with character. It’s jaunty, sunny and clear reduce, like a celebration fuelled by (non-alcoholic) tropical fruit punch.
Then there’s a Twentieth-century traditional, Rudi van Dantzig’s 4 Final Songs, set to Richard Strauss. A late Seventies piece, very a lot of its time: flowy, breezy, stunning with lengthy lyrical phrases as easy because the sheen on the boys’s tights. Regardless of the presence of Loss of life, we’re not speaking uncooked emotion right here – it’s all completely contained in finessed approach, faraway appears to be like and pin-sharp arabesques. The dancers are spectacular all spherical.
