The Belgian choreographer Wim Vandekeybus likes to provoke so it’s no surprise that his new Draw from Within, performed by Rambert’s dancers at their London base, featured a bloody heart and a horror movie vibe. It also contained some incredibly fluent dancing, and watching it livestreamed felt like liberation after months of confinement.
Vandekeybus plays on exactly that theme, structuring the 70-minute piece round great bursts of activity punctuated by mysterious interludes of speech and imagery. It opens on the roof, with two men dancing to flamenco-flecked music, shoulders twitching, hips flexing in a pattern of seduction. Then the camera moves to a match-lit stairwell, full of disconcerting happenings. Then to the studio, where dancers trace shapes of smoke in the air, following the vanishing lines with the uncurling of their bodies.
The entire thing has a nightmarish edge to it – a little girl running away, a woman marooned on a stretcher, another woman talking in many languages on an old-fashioned switchboard, the birth of a 63kg infant. I quickly gave up worrying about what it meant and just enjoyed the sight of Rambert’s dancers stretching gloriously through space.
Untitled is a 10-minute solo by Hofesh Shechter, like the Rambert performed live for a digital audience. The viewers have their Zoom cameras on, so that their watching selves form the backdrop to Rachel Fallon’s performance. Shechter himself provides deadpan guidance on the soundtrack, though his statements are not illuminating. “This is my dancer.” “This is the first part of the piece.” “Soon it’s going to be the second part of the piece.”
The initial section is about love, while the next is about life. “Fragile life,” the choreographer adds, helpfully. The movement is a blend of sliding, sloping and skipping. It fears fearful and sad – and there’s something about the constriction of the dance that feels suitable for this unsettling time.
Star ratings (out of five):
Draw from Within ★★★★
Untitled ★★★
