This four-piece breakdancing crew is agile, energetic and hard-hitting. In The Council of the Ordinary, Bad Taste Crew brings us three dances over an hour ranging in attitude and delivery. The first, Aftermath, draws upon this Irish company’s experiences of growing up in Northern Ireland and the trials and effort to recover in the wake of a terrorist act. The wild jumps and leaps of the opening conveyed less to me, but the second movement, set under four squares of dim light framing each dancer, is poignant and performed with impressive control and intensity.
The second, Mirror, is more abstract, portraying a moment of realisation between one dancer and his reflection. The tone is subtle and delicate and there are some beautiful moments of soaring spins, impressive headstands and leaps, but the precision of unified movement could be perfected.
The final piece, Tribal Assembly, carried the most obvious plot through distinctive characters, set apart as social stereotypes; a weak, sedate homeless guy; a stuffy, jerky businessman; a threatening, lithe thug; an easygoing, supple everyman. The piece has some wonderful moments of interaction, portraying a grimly violent and yet also intimate and tender world. The piece dragged however, and soon the predictable exchanges felt like over-wrought reiterations.
An unfortunate issue I found with this show was the size of the gaps between each piece, sometimes as long as 4 or 5 minutes, which was detrimental to the atmosphere and concentration of the audience, who broke into chatter. One long interval in particular seemed to have a negative effect on the energy of the following dance, which was a shame.
