Oguike - Alston - John Percival

“Little Red”, “Green in Blue”
Henri Oguike Dance Company
Queen Elizabeth Hall, London
March 26 – 27

“Fingerprint”, “Brink”
Richard Alston Dance Company
Sadler's Wells, London
March 28 – 31

by John Percival
copyright © 2007 by John Percival

Coming across my report on Henri Oguike's programme of a year ago, I see that I wasn't too keen on his group ballet “Tiger Dancing”, and watching it again on his '07 spring tour I found no reason to change my mind. But I was a little more impressed this time by his own solo “Expression Lines” (he gave up his active dancing career after an injury nine years ago and turned to choreography, but still makes a subdued appearance at almost every performance). And once again I found the rest of the show much more enjoyable, comprising two newly made works.

One of them, “Red Lines”, is (like last year's amusing “How I Look”) set to music by Vivaldi, this time two short concertos both in G minor — for violin and oboe (RV576) and for violin (RV319). In this, as in the evening's other ballets, Oguike deployed his full ensemble of six women, all recruited during 2004-6, and two men, both with the company since 2000 and now also respectively assistant to Oguike and rehearsal director. The dances, however, are mostly solos, duets or trios, often with low postures, and arranged largely within narrow strips of space — across the front of the stage early on, and in a diagonal later. This gives Oguike's regular lighting designer, Guy Hoare, grounds for his liking to illuminate only part of the stage, but even here there were times with too much darkness for reasonable vision, and that recurred through the evening; it seems that Hoare, and many of his fellow specialists, really should be renamed darkness designers. The red lines of the title, by the way, are provided by red squares laid out in a rectangular pattern, and the dancers are handsomely dressed in very similar but not identical red and black outfits.

Obviously Oguike cannot afford an orchestra and like most small companies has to use mainly recorded music (but it seems specially done for him). However, he makes a point of having one work played live on stage in his programmes: by a string quartet for his Shostakovich ballet “Front Line” or a drumming group for “Second Signal”. Now for “Green in Blue” he has ventured into jazz for the first time, with composer and saxophonist Iain Ballamy accompanied by his keyboard, double bass and drum players. Ballamy has included references to other musicians from Vivaldi to Miles Davis, his purpose being to celebrate various contrasts and relationships. What Oguike does to this is not “jazz dancing” but his own movement style inflected, as always, to the nature of the music. It makes a highly enjoyable suite of dances that show the team to excellent advantage.

With a Welsh mother and Nigerian father, Oguike took up break-dance at school, then studied dance, music and drama before being urged by his teachers at Swansea College to enter London Contemporary Dance School. Thereafter he began his professional career dancing in the Richard Alston Dance Company. By chance, Alston opened a London season at Sadler's Wells right after Oguike's South Bank engagement. Alston's dancers — ten of them, equal numbers men and women — are pretty good, but I don't much enjoy what he gives them to do nowadays; it follows the beats but seems not to pay enough attention to what the music is saying.

His newest work is “Fingerprint”, set to a capriccio and a toccata by Bach. The programme note tells of sadness, humour and wit, but I didn't see much of those qualities in the action. Why does he use so many classical ballet steps, although done barefoot? There was a not dissimilar treatment in “Red Run”, a revival from 1998 accompanied by noises (allegedly music) by Heiner Goebbels. “The Devil in the Detail”, created last year to rags and waltzes by Scott Joplin, fared better, with an apt swagger to its entrances and exits. But again I found much of the movement in its solos and duets less well suited, even if Peter Furness, a big shaven-headed Australian dancer, newly recruited, managed to provide a lively twinkle.

Completing the bill was another new work, “Brink”, choreographed for three couples by the company's longest-serving dancer, Martin Lawrance. I found this a luke-warm response to three “Eurasion Tango movements” by a Japanese composer Ayuo. It seemed to me that the luckiest participant in the show was the pianist Jason Ridgway. Seated at a grand piano on stage, he got to play the two youthful works by Bach and the Scott Joplin selection: two appealing but contrasting scores both very attractively played. Groups of students cheered every item; grown-up spectators demonstrated less enthusiasm and it was sadly alarming to see so many empty seats at a premiere in this theatre.

Photos:
Top: Henri Oguike. Photo by Chris Nash.
Middle: Henri Oguike in "Expression Lines." Photo by Chris Nash.
Bottom: Richard Alston Dance Company. Jonathan Goddard and Martin Lawrence. Photo by Hugo Glendenning.

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