Impressive dancers and choreography by Mathieu Geffré in Rendezvous Dance’s What Songs May Do should have had everything going for it. Set to Nina Simone – not her best hits, but a selection of her more mournful songs movingly accompany a retrospective piece about a gay relationship; but sadly after a brilliant start, the piece disintegrates.
(it) should have had everything going for it
The two dancers, Paolo Pisarra and the taller Oliver Chapman holding hands enter from the audience to Ne me quitte pas, and take us through the stages of nervous beginnings, exhilaration, antagonism and potential reconciliation. Displaying amazing skill in complicated moves, balletic lifts and more expressive grappling, twisting and turning, there are wonderful contrasting moments of stillness as they unbutton each other’s shirts. There’s a superb sequence of stylised slinky moves in a sensuous sexual encounter. But a first quarrel is enacted literally as a fisticuffs without any choreographic input. Mouths open startlingly suggesting animalistic desire but continues for so long it becomes weird. At one moment Oliver performs a headstand for no good reason.
The show then disintegrates: the dancers standing still for tedious long periods. Literal silences show how much the emotion is dependent on Simone. There are efforts to create drama with a blackout plus lighting spots but the stop-start ending goes on and on.
Originally a 12 minute version for Dance Company Wales in 2015, the piece was extended. This may explain the padding. Despite some impressive choreography, a show has to have an understanding of drama to win more stars.
