Grave Diggers of 1933

The final Rosas piece of the season -- at least for me -- was Desh, a mostly rather leaden suite of dances to Indian ragas and a chunk of noodling, supposedly Indian-influenced, jazz by John Coltrane, partly co-choreographed by performer Salva Sanchis. Despite some pretty images and fine dancing, only the central trio section really came to life and the evening as a whole seemed over-extended and dull. Fase aside, this series of London performances doesn't really seem to have done Anne Teresa justice, but it has still been good to have so many opportunities to see pieces new to these shores.

Wayward punk ballerino Michael Clark and WT fave Lea Anderson can also be pretty hit and miss at times, so it's good to be able to give both of them the thumbs up on their new shows.

Not that Mmm... is exactly new; rather it is a fairly significant reworking of Clark's warehouse rave party from 1992, aka Michael's Modern Masterpiece. Back then, Clark was almost a rock star and his performances more like gigs than your usual high-falutin' dance occasions. Mmm... pitched Wire and the Sex Pistols against Stravinsky, with performers including Leigh Bowery and Clark's mother Bessie, climaxing with a blistering solo for dancer Joanne Barrett.

Fourteen years later, Clark puts himself in something approximating the Leigh Bowery role, wandering in and out of a greatly enlarged company that again includes Barrett, though her sacrificial finale has been ceded to Amy Hollingsworth. A great many details have changed, but all the most memorable images are stronger than ever. Relocated to the relatively sober confines of the Barbican, and with a significantly older audience, the revised piece seems less burdened with cool and attitude, less bratty, more articulate, more complete. It is just as thrilling as it was in 1992, thoroughly entertaining and sexy, and highly recommended.

As is Lea Anderson's apocalyptic backstage musical YIPPEEE!! (2006), a dazzlingly sinister tribute to the Depression-era Warner pictures choreographed by Busby Berkeley, with their poverty row chorines, tyrannical impresarios and geometrically regimented dance numbers.

Big, loud and very twisted, this is easily the best thing The Cholmondeleys and The Featherstonehaughs have done since at least 1999's Smithereens, to which, with its sexually perverse and decayed showbiz milieu, it could be seen as a kind of epic sequel. The choreographic intricacies and thumping music are irresistible, the costumes glittering and ghastly, and the hysterical fixed grins terrifying. God knows what the coachloads of schoolgirls in the audience made of it, but I thought it was bloody fantastic.
Posted by matt at November 4, 2006 12:30 PM