Rambert: Ghost Dances, Tomorrow & Flight

Malgorzata Dzierzon’s work Flight was a triumph of bending bodies, the enclosed and the free, the pushers and the pushed, that had a great momentum and circular rhythm. It was also the piece of the evening that was most invigorated by a gorgeous live score composed by Somei Satoh and Kate Whitley.

Lucy Guerin’s Tomorrow came across as colder and more totalitarian but with similar divisions between puppets and the puppeteers (my reading anyway). The Orwellian aesthetic was well designed and the jittery movements were enjoyable in a bombastic way.

Strangely, classic Rambert piece Ghost Dances felt more fractured and less immersive. The buoyant communal dance moments were fun, and the lithe contorting of the ghosts an impressive spectacle, but it didn’t seem to hang together and lift me out of my self as the best dance can. Full disclosure however: my close proximity to the stage so as to not take in the whole as easily, and the regular audibility of squeaky soles might have affected the immersion.

Theatre Royal Brighton, 1 March 2017

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