Phoenix at Home

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Phoenix Dance Theatre Phoenix at Home Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre 27 Sep 2019 19:30

I have swelled with pride when I have watched Phoenix Dance Theatre perform at the Peacock, the Lowry or the Linbury in Covent Garden but nowhere are they better than at home in their own theatre before their local audience.  This year it was particularly good with extracts from an exciting new piece called Black Waters which will be premiered at the Leeds Playhouse in February.

Black Waters was introduced by Sharon Watson, the company's artistic director, at the start of the show. In a short speech, she explained that it was inspired by two of the most infamous episodes of British imperial history. One was the murder of 130 Africans in 1782 by the owner of the vessel Zong who actually had the nerve to attempt to claim insurance for the loss of those slaves. The other outrage was the imprisonment of Indians in the Kala Pani prison over 100 years later. Watson mentioned that she was building on the success of Windrush: Movement of the People which is another aspect of this country's imperial past.

The piece is a collaboration between Watson and Shambik Ghose and Mitul Sengupta of Rhythmosaic in Kolkatta.  The intention is to blend the heritage and strengths of both companies. That is to say, kathak and contemporary to a score by Dishari Chakraborty. The extracts that we saw are very uncomfortable to watch even centuries later but they are also absorbing.  Clearly, this will be a very important work.

Our mood changed instantly with the next piece which was a work by the students of Phoenix Youth Academy.  Those kids are wonderful.  Their energy was boundless.  They performed a work created especially for them by Sandrine Monin.  She is the choreographer who created Calyx.  Monin thrilled me as a dancer when she was with Phoenix and she continues to excite me with her choreography.

The last work of the evening was Jeanguy Saintus's Rite of Spring.  I had seen that work in the mightly Lowry (see  Phoenix Comes of Age with its Rite of Spring 27 March 2019) and in the CAST in Doncaster (see Phoenix's Rite of Spring and Left Unseen 11 April 2019) and I have described the work in those reviews.  The Stanley and Audrey Burton is a much more intermediate auditorium and I have actually danced in it.  For once I felt I was not just watching the performance but actually taking part in the ceremony.  Never have I felt closer to the performers or more involved in the show than I did that night.  It was an unforgettable theatrical experience.

Sadly, dancers move on.  Carmen, Sandrine and Prentice have gone but the wonderful Vanessa Vince-Pang is still here as are Carlos Martinez and Michael Marquez.  There are some very promising new faces whose careers I shall follow with interest. 

Shortly after the show, it was announced that Sharon Watson had received a Black British Business Award (see Sharon Watson wins big at the Black British Business Awards 3 Oct 2019). This award delights me but not surprise me in the least.  I have seen her in presentations in contexts quite unconnected with dance such as the Chinese IP Roadshow that I chaired two years ago and she is very impressive indeed.

Phoenix's Rite of Spring and Left Unseen

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Phoenix Dance Theatre The Rite of Spring and Left Unseen 9 April 2019, 19:30 CAST in Doncaster

On 8 March 2019, I saw Phoenix Dance Theatre perform  Jeanguy Saintus's Rite of Spring with a live orchestra on the main stage of the Lowry Theatre.  It was a magnificent performance that I described as Phoenix's coming of age.  It had been part of an evening of dance and song - a very successful collaboration with Opera North that I should like to see repeated.   

On 9 April 2019,  I saw the Rite of Spring again at the Cast in Doncaster as part of a double bill with Left Unseen by Amaury Lebrun.  The company had already performed those works in Poole and will take them to Malvery, Keswick, Dundee, Cheltenham and the Peacock. 

The evening opened with Left Unseen which is the first of Lebrun's works that I have seen.  However, we shall shortly see another because he told me that he has been commissioned to create a work for Northern Ballet. Lebrun was born in France and trained at the School of the Ballet du Nord in Roubaix and the School of American Ballet in New York.  He danced with several companies before joining the Compania Nacional de Danza in Spain as a principal.

Left Unseen opens with a spotlit single dancer.  According to the programme notes, the work explores inclusion and isolation.  I was particularly impressed by an interaction between Prentice Whitlow and Vanessa Vince-Pang. She reaches out to him but he recoils from her.  She tries again to similar effect. He approaches her but she steps aside.  He tries again but she pushes him out of the way. Finally, she leaps onto his back as an act of aggression - not of affection.  The score was contributed by Alva Noto, Ryuichi Sakamoto and Hildur  Guðnadóttir.  It was integrated into a single piece so seamlessly that I thought it had been a single work.

The main difference between the performances of the Rite of Spring at the Lowry and the Cast is that the company had to rely on recorded music in Doncaster.  They have chosen a very good recording by the Cleveland Orchestra under the direction of Pierre Boulez. The work that the Ballets Russes had performed in Paris in 2013 had been set in Pre-Christian Russia.  Using the same score by Stravinsky, Saintus set his work in contemporary Haiti drawing heavily on voudou rituals that invoke Ogou (the spirit of fire, iron, war and blacksmiths), the Marasa (divine twins) and Damballa (the serpent spirit and creator of life). In Saintus's version as in the Ballets Russes', there is a chosen one but she is chosen not for sacrifice but to host the spirit of Damballa.

I was much closer to the stage in Doncaster than I had been in Salford and I could see and admire the intricate robes worn by both male and female dancers with their tassels and drapery. For one of the movements, two of the dancers' hands were coloured green,  For another, the hands of all the dancers were coloured red.   At one point a red cushion which I had assumed to be a heart was passed on stage but, on reflection, I think it may have been the spirit of  Damballa. 

Saintus's production is an original work anchored in the traditions of the Caribbean and probably also  Africa.   However, I also think it is a very faithful one.   As I said in my previous review, Nijinsky's shade would not have been troubled by Saintus's reimagining. There is something unsettling about the idea of human sacrifice even though it is only on the stage.  That was largely absent in Saintus's work.  It felt like a celebration rather than an oblation.

Terpsichore Titles: Contemporary Company of 2016

(c) 2016 Jane Lambert
All rights reserved

I've seen a lot of contemporary dance this year:  the National Dance Company of Wales and BalletLorent in Huddersfield (see Cambriophilia 19 March 2016 and BalletLorent  3 Oct 2016), Rambert at the Lowry (see Red Hot Rambert 1 Oct 2016) the Royal Ballet's Wayne McGregor triple bill at Covent Garden (see McGregor Triple Bill 18 Nov 2016) and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre and Nederlands Dans Theater 2 at the Bradford Alhambra (see Prickling - NDT2 in Bradford 1 May 2016 and Alvin Ailey in Bradford 29 Sept 2016) and the Lowry (see NBT2 at the Lowry 24 April 2016 and Alvin Ailey in Salford 8 Oct 2016). But for me, 2016 was the year of Phoenix.

It is 35 years since David Hamilton, Donald Edwards and Vilmore James founded Phoenix Dance Theatre in Leeds.  As the tour page on the company's website put it:

"From small beginnings in inner-city Leeds, Phoenix Dance Theatre has grown to be one of the UKs leading contemporary dance companies."

The company has some of my favourite dancers such as Carmen Vazquez Marfil, Sandrine Monin, Sam Vaherlehto, Vanessa Vince-Pang and Prentice Whitlow. It also has in its artistic director, Sharon Watson,  an excellent choreographer and it has just commissioned for the first time a work from one of its own dancers (see Calyx 8 Dec 2016).

As I said in Phoenix's 35th Anniversary Tour 18 Feb 2016:

"Phoenix contributes much to the cultural life of the North of England and the nation not only through its performances but also by its educational and outreach work which includes workshops on tour, academies for young people in Leeds and the North East and schools partnerships. The statistics are impressive. According to the programme for yesterday's performance there were 641 workshops engaging 2,379 young people in Leeds between 2014 and 2015 and a further 228 engaging 1,360 young persons outside the city with a total audience of 91,128."

The "performance" to which I referred was a celebration of Phoenix's 35th anniversary at the West Yorkshire Playhouse on 17 Feb 2016 with Sharon Watson's Melt, Kate Flatt's Undivided Loves and Itzik Galili's Until.With/Out.Enough.  It was a very special evening.

For all these reasons Phoenix Dance Theatre is my contemporary company for 2016.