Mannion / Bidault / Eira Dance Theatre, Resolution Festival
Golden Leaves © Eira Dance Theatre
Resolution Festival is the ultimate dance playground.
A place for any choreographer of any style at the beginning of their career to present their work as part of a one-off triple bill (many for the first time). You never know what you’re going to get, but variety and experimentation is normally the name of the game.
And variety did this night have in store: flamenco, contemporary and meditation.
Jane by Magdalenda Mannion was my first experience of flamenco dance, and won’t be my last. Danced to live cello music and percussion (accompanied by an eerie off-kilter backing track), she danced under an intense spotlight. Her feet thrummed on the floor as her arms extended into large shapes, occasionally wheeling to hit bells hanging from the ceiling or hitting herself in bursts of body percussion. The piece was inspired by Bertha Rochester (aka the ‘mad woman in the attic’ in Jane Eyre), as well as ‘the boundaries of social expectation, quiet rebellion against the norm and the wild inner life of an introvert’ – many sources of inspiration that may have muddied the waters in the development stages. For while the idea of battling against constraints was evident through confining herself to a spotlight, any more nuance than that was hard to grasp.
The theme of ‘so close I can almost taste it’ was a common thread throughout the night.
Les Nuages by Bea Bidault explored the ideas of loneliness and connection through the clever use of clear balloons. Shaped like torsos, she hugged, kissed, deflated, squeezed smoke out of and kicked these hollow figures – the human connection she craves but is frustrated to be unable to grasp. A moment where she slow-danced with one of them and you could see her body through the plastic was particularly poignant. Bidault is evidently bursting with creative and interesting ideas, so it was surprising to discover that the straight contemporary dance sections were actually quite standard fare (although that is in no way taking away from how accomplished she is as a dancer - she danced with a liquidness and yet her limbs maintained rigidity). The piece also included spoken word and song which for me didn’t add anything to the narrative she had created. The original starting point however has much potential.
If Les Nuages had too much going on, then Golden Leaves by Eira Dance Theatre was the opposite. A meditative duet choreographed and danced by Billy Maxwell Taylor, it aimed to create a place of calm that we as the audience could escape into for 15 minutes. It featured a beautiful soundscape with a recording of one of the dancer’s observations while in the Forest of Dean played over the top. On the back wall a series of images of trees were projected, while dappled light cascaded over the stage. All rather calming and peaceful. What was surprising was the limited amount of dance content. Maxwell Taylor sat and slowly poured tea (also served to audience members before the show to get us in the zone) while Maggie Tin Lok Chan spent a large amount of the piece ever so slowly walking backwards while holding a chime. While a higher level of dance content would have risked piercing the calm environment the audio and visual effects had created, I do wonder whether some in the audience may have left feeling a little short changed.
★★
Jane by Magdalenda Mannion
Les Nuages by Bea Bidault
Golden Leaves by Billy Maxwell Taylor
The Place / 17 January 2025
Press invite (from Eira Dance Theatre)
Part of Resolution Festival. Running until 15 February. Find out more →
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