Category: Modern

REVIEW: In Bloom

Published on by clemencxLeave a comment

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Sometimes the bravest thing a flower can do is open again.

 In Bloom is a bold, playful and deeply feminine solo performance that blends theatre, dance and physical storytelling. At its heart, it asks a deceptively simple question: what does it mean to bloom again after the wind has forced you shut?

From the moment Louna Palombo steps onto the stage, she proves that one performer is more than enough to fill the space. As a standalone presence she is phenomenal. She is not just portraying a flower – she becomes one. Rooted in her pot at the start of the show, she inhabits the fragile optimism of something growing toward the light. Through voice, posture, breath and movement, she brings a plant to life with startling conviction.

The story unfolds across acts that mirror the rhythm of the seasons: spring, summer, autumn and winter, before returning to a final rebirth in spring. In the beginning, our flower grows quietly on the balcony of an apartment complex. But when summer arrives she is repotted into a garden, a moment of liberation that introduces her to the Wind, a carefree force that blows without consequence and becomes her Mr Big: thrilling, intoxicating and ultimately destructive.

Left alone after the storm, the flower is forced into a period of reflection. The performance cleverly uses the natural cycle of seasons to chart this emotional journey. Spring represents growth, summer is joy and reckless love, autumn signals loss, and winter becomes a time of stillness before renewal.

At several moments in the piece, the flower poses a question that lingers long after the show ends: “What does a flower mean if not given?” Later she asks the more radical counterpart: “What does a flower mean for itself?” These lines crystallise the core of the performance. Flowers are so often symbols offered to others — tokens of love, apology, celebration. But what happens when the flower exists not as a gift, but as something living for itself?

The transitions between the seasons are one of the production’s charming devices as the show pauses briefly as Palombo changes a sign marking the new season, almost like a cinematic title card. With music swelling in the background, the audience can practically picture filmic transitions: leaves swirling for autumn, warm sunlight for summer, icy quiet for winter. It gives the piece a playful theatricality while keeping the storytelling clear and rhythmic.

Physically, Palombo’s performance is extraordinary. She uses every part of her body to embody the flower’s life. Her voice moves through vulnerability, excitement, heartbreak and resilience, while her physicality shifts seamlessly between spoken theatre and bursts of dance. In moments of love with the Wind, Sofia Zaragoza’s choreography expands into fluid contemporary movement, Palombo’s limbs stretching and spiralling as though pulled by invisible currents.

What makes it so compelling is how effortless it appears. Palombo’s control and physical intelligence make the choreography look organic, as if the movement is simply the natural way this flower exists. The audience ends up living vicariously through her and rooting for her to bloom again.

The visual world of the piece is equally thoughtful. The staging transforms the performance space into a small garden: pots, scattered flowers and patches of grass that gradually become part of the action as the story unfolds. Nothing sits idly on stage for long. By the end of the show, the set has been touched, moved, or repurposed, mirroring the flower’s own transformation.

Costume plays a key role in building the character. Palombo wears a soft, ballet-core outfit that suggests the delicate structure of a plant: she is the stem, while a crown of petals sits on her head. Glittering highlighter across her cheeks catches the stage lights like morning dew. The effect is whimsical without tipping into parody, allowing the symbolism to remain playful yet sincere. The petals themselves carry an unmistakable metaphor for femininity, evoking womanhood, sexuality and independence.

If the piece has a flaw, it arrives in its final moments. After such a rich visual and physical journey, the closing explanation of the show’s message feels slightly unnecessary. The metaphor is already clear: a flower reclaiming her ability to open herself again. Especially performed on International Women’s Day, the audience hardly needs the theme spelled out quite so directly.

Still, this is a minor misstep in an otherwise captivating work. In Bloom succeeds because it trusts the power of the body, the stage, and one performer’s ability to transform imagination into reality.

Image Credit: Pierre Tappon

REVIEW: Modern Milestones

Published on by Tom MalachiLeave a comment

Rating: 5 out of 5.

“Five Variations of Equally Exceptional Modern Dance”

Yorke Dance Project’s Modern Milestones is a collection of five pieces of contemporary dance. It places older works by pioneering choreographers in conversations with two new works having their London premieres. In order, they are: Martha Graham’s Deep Song; Liam Francis’ CAST [X]; Robert Cohan’s Lacrymosa; Bella Lewitzky’s Kinaesonata; and Christoper Bruce’s Troubadour.

These works are all modern – in the sense that they ask what dance can be; all expertly danced; and all very beautiful.

It is one-hundred years since Martha Graham founded her company. First shown in 1937, Deep Song still feels like an astoundingly daring piece of dance to make. Made in response to the Spanish Civil War and with a set and costuming alluding to Picasso’s Guernica, it is a dance in which emotional turmoil and vulnerability are made legible through the body. Amy Thake dances it with powerful, moving brilliance. Through Graham’s series of contractions and releases she plots a course that finds countless textures for the emotions Graham is exploring.

CAST [X] is choreographed by the company’s own Liam Francis, who also dances in it. From darkness and the murmur of voices, comes a spotlight and four figures seemingly caught in the act. What this act is and who is guilty becomes the central questions of the dance. In the best way possible the piece is reminiscent (but not derivative) of Crystal Pite’s The Statement. The four dancers are in constant movement – they seem to form alliances and conspiracies that dissolve as quickly as they appear. In a lesser choreographer’s and dancers’ hands this could become a messy swirl – not here. The countless stories he offers and weaves together are conceived and danced with absolute, precise clarity. The beautiful balancing act of CAST [X] is that this precision does not dull the joy and volatility of the piece.

Lacrymosa tells with dance one of the oldest stories we have: after a long time apart, two people reunite. Cohan’s title implies Christ and Mary but Lacrymosa has a universality to it. Eileih Muir and Jonathan Goddard play with this universality – at moments they are a mother and child, at others two long-lost lovers. They become like a binary star, twisting around one another, bound together and yet unable to come to rest together.

1970s Kinaesonata, choreographed by the much-underperformed Bella Lewitzky, finds a joy and fascination in what it is possible for the body to do. In bright costumes eight dancers move in seemingly every possible way. Kinaesonata stuns you with how it keeps finding new ideas to fold into itself, new shapes, new lifts, new rhythms – it grows with these ideas, almost shimmering with energy by the end. It is a technically demanding dance but danced perfectly. It’s not that perfection itself is beautiful but that so many versions of perfection strung together becomes wonderfully mesmeric.

Finally, the longest piece of Modern Milestones is Christopher Bruce’s Troubadour. With a soundtrack made from a live recording of Leonard Cohen in London, Troubadour explores what it means to be on the road making art for a living. But it is not just sentimental homage, whilst Troubadour celebrates Cohen it goes beyond that – it finds misery and sacrifices in this life too. Troubadour becomes about what it means to give things up for one’s art, something which all brilliant dancers know all too well. It is a strangely sad piece but one, as you have surely come to expect, that is soul-twistingly beautiful.

Modern Milestones is brilliantly chosen and danced. It is beautiful but also goes beyond that; it’s erudite and challenges its audience. Perhaps the highest compliment I can give it is that it is truly modern – it stands at the edges of what we know dance at its best can be and looking outward from there. What is that, if not modern?

REVIEW: Marking Time

Published on by Antonia ConstantinLeave a comment

Rating: 5 out of 5.


Marking Time delivers three fiercely distinct visions of how sound and movement bend, stretch, and disrupt our sense of time.

Earlier this year, I saw Outlander at Kings Place and was fascinated by the musical chemistry between Nico Muhly and Sam Amidon. The Only Tune has lived rent-free in my head ever since. So when I heard that Marking Time at Sadler’s Wells would bring their world into the realm of dance, I was genuinely excited to see how movement might deepen and disrupt what I thought I already knew about the piece.

Muhly’s own words capture the promise of the evening: “Dance makes you experience time in a completely different way than in a concert hall.” And the title “Marking Time” itself seems to play on that very idea: not just tracking moments as they pass, but tracing how time can be felt, stretched, broken, replayed, remade through sound and motion.

The structure of the show is clean yet deeply layered: three pieces, three choreographers, three distinct ways of mixing sound with movement.

First up is Slant by Jules Cunningham, set to Muhly’s piece Drones. Here time doesn’t feel linear at all. There is no story you can follow; instead, sound and movement appear disjointed, disorientated. The dancers’ technical precision is counterbalanced by their sense of being lost. A length of string used as a prop at the beginning, seemingly meant to hold things together, ends up in a tangled bundle on the floor, impossible to untangle. That ambiguity of time, movement and rhythm felt compelling to me.

The second piece, Veins of Water by Maud Le Pladec, felt like a metamorphosis of the string motif: that tangled line becomes fluid, turning into the “veins of water” that carry the descent of the audience into a form of katabasis. The dancers moved with sinuous grace, their limbs and torsos sweeping like currents, echoing Muhly’s score. Here the narrative felt fluid, less fragmented, but still retaining that under-current of grief I experienced during the first piece. Lighting by Eric Soyet is integral throughout, weaving with movement and sound to create “dance shadows” , to play with perspective and particularly in the final moments, where the stage becomes a kind of cinematic space, recalling the era of 1920s film.

And then came the part I had been quietly anticipating all evening: a new incarnation of The Only Tune, shaped by the unlikely but electrifying triangle of Nico Muhly, Sam Amidon, and Michael Keegan-Dolan. Each of the three brings a distinct artistic lineage. Amidon channels the voice of the past, his delivery carrying the grit and fragility of the old storytellers who first whispered these ballads. Muhly, in contrast, operates like a modern sound architect, dismantling the ballad’s old structure and rebuilding it into layered sound worlds where memory, distortion and emotional residue coexist. And Keegan-Dolan, with his blend of ritual, irreverence and theatrical instinct, slips into the cracks between them, conjuring a movement language that feels half myth, half trickster.

The dancers, clad in skeletal costumes, move with a mixture of menace and mischief, revealing the strange truth at the heart of murder ballads: that these grim narratives were always meant to thrill as much as to chill. Scratches, growls, sudden exhalations and the thud of feet become part of the score. Sam Amidon stands on a chair, a rope dangling above him, as he recounts the tale of jealous sisters and the miller’s grisly handiwork. The staging exposes the grotesque humour buried inside the story.

The string returns here in a new guise, a symbol of something eternal: a “no-time” thread running through the story’s violence, perhaps even the unbroken line between life and death that the ballad gestures toward.

The musicians of the Britten Sinfonia provided an extraordinary live texture around the action embodying what it means for tradition to be not merely inherited, but actively reimagined in real time.

In the end, Marking Time felt less like a programme of three separate works and more like a single, shifting inquiry into what time does to sound, to bodies, and to stories. Across disorientation, fluidity, and the wild theatricality of The Only Tune, the evening revealed how music and movement can fracture time, loop it, distort it, and sometimes even stop it.

REVIEW: 1 Degree Celsius

Published on by Mark LloydLeave a comment

Rating: 3 out of 5.

It’s an acquired taste, but when the music drops, so does your jaw

Sung Im Her’s latest work, 1 Degree Celsius, presented at the Southbank Centre, is a mixed bag that oscillates between challenging performance art and exhilarating contemporary dance. While the show is certainly not an accessible entry point for dance novices, those already familiar with and appreciative of interpretive movement will find moments of high quality performance.

The opening twenty minutes, which starts with the choreographer alone on stage, proves to be the production’s greatest stumbling block. Set to either silence or atmospheric humming, the movements felt disconnected and labored. This initial section leaned heavily into performance art, resulting in a start that felt more abstract and less like what many would typically define as a dance show. Unfortunately, in this 50-minute-long production, this slower, more opaque segment took up a significant portion of the running time.

The show undergoes a striking transformation once the percussive music kicks in. At this point, the audience is finally treated to the incredible dance and movement promised by the production. The talented dancers execute moments of highly synchronised walking across the stage. While there is an awful lot of rhythmic walking, the precision, coordination, and the sudden, sharp changes in movement make these sections highly effective and visually interesting. This is where the piece truly becomes entertaining and showcases the high skill level of the performers.

The show is reportedly intended to “look at the topic of climate change and the effects it is having on the environment.” However, the abstract nature of the choreography makes this theme practically impossible to glean purely from the performance itself. Without prior knowledge of the program’s notes, the intended environmental message is completely lost within the movement.

Ultimately, while I would not recommend this show to someone looking to get into seeing dance performances, if you are an existing fan of interpretive contemporary dance, this would be a great show for you.

IN CONVERSATION WITH: Olivia Graydon and Bayley Graham

Published on by ayoungishperspective1Leave a comment

This November, Adam Garcia’s Irish and tap dance sensation Emerald Storm is returning to the Emerald Theatre for an unmissable season. Led by Lord of the Dance’s Olivia Graydon, viral tap sensation Bayley Graham and Britain and America’s Got Talent finalist Tom Ball, this high energy production presents a contemporary fusion of traditional Irish dance, tap and live music. We sat down with Olivia and Bailey to discuss their upcoming performance.

EMERALD STORM fuses Irish dance and tap. When you first brought those two styles together in rehearsal, what surprised you most about how your techniques “talk” to each other?

    Bayley: I’ve always been an admirer of Irish dance – I loved watching Flatley as a kid and may have stolen… I mean “borrowed” a few steps along the way and “tapified” them. So it was exciting to finally explore how the two styles could work together and bring something fresh to audiences in London. They’re techniques are completely opposite, but that’s what makes it work – opposites attract. There’s a real fire when those rhythms meet, creating something that feels both traditional and respectful to the dance forms, yet brand new at the same time.

    You’ve captivated millions online with your viral tap videos — what changes when you take that fast, digital energy and stretch it across a full West End performance?

      Bayley: Online, a video can only capture a moment, it’s just a tiny tease, really. Yes can show the flash and the fun, but not the full journey. On stage, you get to stretch that out and actually take the audience somewhere more than just a few seconds. Every night with Emerald Storm, there’s space to build the story and the connection through rhythm. Video is everything in this modern age, but nothing compares to seeing it live. The honesty, the sweat, the determination, and sharing that moment with the people right in front of you. That’s something you just can’t recreate through a screen.

      You come from a strong Irish dance tradition, but Emerald Storm pushes that into a contemporary, cabaret-style world. What did you have to unlearn—or refine—to make that transition?

        O: For me it was less about unlearning and more about adapting. Irish dance is rooted in tradition and culture but over the years has moved in to the 21st century and become more commercial. In my own journey with Irish dance i have always tried to keep the foundations of the dance form whilst trying to push the boundaries. I think that’s why I love Emerald Storm so much. In my opinion Sam and Adam have created another genre of Irish dance.

        The post-show Tap Jam is such a bold invitation. What’s the best or most surprising thing that’s ever happened when audience members join you on stage? 

          O: I was blown away with how many people joined. A Jam is not part of the Irish dance world, but we do love a ‘Step about’ so I was loving watching everyone shine. I also loved seeing Irish dancers push themselves and get involved.

          Bayley: The Tap Jam has become one of the highlights of the show. I don’t think any of us expected it to take off the way it did. I remember the first night chatting with Adam thinking maybe a couple of people would join us but to our surprise the entire stage filled up with dancers. The most special part is being able to connect and talk with everyone. At the end of the day we are there for the same reason and that’s the love we share for our dance. So if you are coming along, don’t feel worried, everyone and anyone is allowed to give it ago.

          Working alongside Adam Garcia and Samantha Heather, was there a rehearsal note or creative breakthrough that changed how a number feels or looks on stage? 

            O: Yes definitely, the Emerald Theatre stage is quite a difficult shape to work with. It is a triangular point at the front, so the biggest task in rehearsals was making sure we had blocked the numbers to adapt to the stage and space. Sam and Adam worked very hard in making sure we were giving the audience the full impact of the show and leaning into that immersive feel of being in Emerald storm.

            Bayley: Working with Adam and Samantha has been a lot of fun. They bring a real warmth into the room, which makes it easy to play, take risks, and feel encouraged. I grew up watching Adam in Hot Shoe Shuffle, it was a huge inspiration for my foundation in tap, so finally getting to be in the studio and work alongside him was definitely a bucket-list moment. I think the biggest highlight has been their openness – they really encouraged us to be ourselves and bring what makes us unique to the piece.

            This show demands stamina and precision – what are your personal pre-show rituals, and is there a particular number that still gives you that rush of adrenaline every night? 

              O: For me, I love to listen to music and stretch. Bayley’s dressing rooms and I are opposite each other so we like to keep a good vibe and good energy around us. 

              Stretching and warming up is important to me as I dance a lot in bare feet, so I like to make sure I am 100% warm and ready. Fields of Athenry will always be a favourite number of mine. It is where the Irish and tappers get to dance together for the first time, and tom is also singing the number which is amazing. I love the power it holds and how much fun it is.

              The whole show gives me adrenaline – there’s not really a quiet moment unless it’s intermission. Each night feels different, especially in the Emerald Theatre space where the audience is right there with you. It’s so intimate that you can’t hide, you just have to give everything you’ve got. I do love a pre-show coffee, a good warm-up to some of my favourite tunes….especially Mr. Astaire and, of course, Olivia… that part’s essential.

              Screenshot

              REVIEW: Bornsick

              Published on by Eoin FentonLeave a comment

              Rating: 4 out of 5.

              An endurance test has never looked quite so beautiful.

              As a former elite acrobatic gymnast representing Britain, Lewis Walker is no stranger to perseverance and endurance. They are an emerging voice on the dance scene, having collaborated with the likes of BULLYACHE and currently resident at Studio Wayne McGregor — the London run is totally sold out. In their new work Bornsick, they go through extreme lengths to explore the impact of the learned movements and behaviours that come from dance and gymnastics.

              As an audience we are eye-level to a black sprung floor that dominates the ornate Round Chapel, watching as Walker writhes in a pale latex blanket before the action kicks off. Restrained by the taught material, and with air perilously being sucked in and out through a vacuum, the embryonic Walker eventually breaks free from their prison, wriggling like a defenceless chick. The sense of vulnerability is especially palpable throughout the work, we always get the sense that there is some omnipotent being pushing Walker towards the next task of endurance.

              An especially gruelling sequence sees Walker inch their way across the perimeter of the floor through drills. They drag their legs behind, scuttle about in a bridge, walk in a handstand — while unnerving to watch, Walker accomplishes each movement with aplomb. Walker has seemingly accepted the solitary monasticism of elite athletics, diligently executing back tucks over and over. The element of endurance makes for fascinating watching as Walker becomes more and more fatigued, digging deeper within themself for inner strength, we are always willing for them to make it through.

              As Walker navigates a push for freedom in strobing lights and clubby beats — which look and feel astounding in the venue — the work edges slightly towards cliché. It’s certainly engrossing, but choreographically doesn’t entirely seem in opposition to what came before. However in a touching coda Walker manages to find a well-earned cathartic ending after the veritable performance marathon. There is no doubt that this is a maker with an artful eye. Walker’s manifesto is not without its flaws, the programme description is quite airy in its detailing of what they wish to interrogate in this work, yet it all indicates an artist who has a skill for making impactful performance. This is certainly a choreographer to watch.

              Image credit: Beth Chalmers

              IN CONVERSATION WITH: Katherina Radeva

              Published on by Antonia ConstantinLeave a comment

              Bottoms is the newest work from cutting-edge, fearless performance makers Two Destination Language, which makes its World Premiere as part of Dance International Glasgow, 14 – 15 May, 2025. Known for embracing joy on stage, and celebrating the power and movement of non-traditional dance bodies, Two Destination Language’s Bottoms explores the tradition of Can-Can, a dance which first evolved during the Industrial Revolution as a way for workers to escape social norms, let off steam and express themselves through wild displays of physical prowess. We sat down with Co-Director and Performer, Katherina Radeva to learn more about the production.

              You describe Bottoms as a space of joy and abandon, but it’s also clearly political. How do you balance those two things—delight and defiance—on stage?

              I honestly feel that joy is political. It is a political statement to look for joy in the current global political climate. Claiming a moment of delight is refusing to let the bastards get you down. If politicians don’t have to take their influence terribly seriously, and we’ve seen that in Boris as well as Trump, then there’s a defiance inherent in holding onto joy despite the horrifying impacts of military, environmental and economic misadventure. Those 60 minutes people choose to spend with us – we want them to feel like a release: leaving them entertained and surprised and thoughtful and hopefully with questions about the world we share. The balance is like life – you can’t have light without dark and you can’t recognise the shadows without the light.

              The show reclaims the Can-Can from its commercialised, glamourised image. What surprised you most when digging into the dance’s roots and original spirit?

              Workers, mostly men, would gather to drink after work and they began to throw some shapes, showing off and letting off steam. This was in opposition to the formally defined social dances of the time. Then, women joined the party by kicking their legs high along with the men. Then, business spotted an opportunity, and welcomed the cancan in their cabarets: they adopted and monetised the popular dance. At the same time Toulouse Lautrec was painting and drawing the girls kicking their legs and then, as now, the theatre management figured that sex sells. For functional reasons, many women’s underwear had an open crotch at the time, and so the high kicks teased audiences with what they might glimpse. So, the cancan was popularised for those who could pay to see the show, and occupy a particular kind of gaze as its audience.

              I guess the most surprising thing for us was that men started it. You can really imagine the joy that dancing brought them, at the end of a hard working day. There’s something really delightful about imagining the dance before it was brought into the conformity of an entertainment to be bought and sold.

              You mention that none of your dancers would meet the Moulin Rouge’s traditional criteria. How does that shift the energy and meaning of the Can-Can in Bottoms?

              Well, none us would! You’ve got to be tall and thin, extremely fit with long legs, tiny waist etc. We are all gloriously different from that. I mean, I am a size 14, 43 year old perimenoposal woman – and I’m reclaiming the dance, remaking it for my body and the glorious group of dancers I’m part of in this.

              We have deconstructed the dance choreographically – there is recognisable cancan, but we’re questioning the spectacle, and the gaze that the dance we’re familiar with invites, and the idealised bodies it relies on. At the same time, we’re fascinated by performance, the relationship it creates between an audience member and the people they’re watching. Is there a power dynamic, and how is it constructed? What can we do to play with that relationship? The cancan is a tool which lets us retain a handful of humour while we play with those questions.

              This show seems to be in conversation with how we value labour and bodies—especially in performance. As artists in a post-pandemic, burnout-heavy world, what do you want audiences to take away from that?

              We are working for you: on stage, in front of your eyes, we’re working. The things we do in the show: those are our jobs. It’s a job we love doing! The delight we take in our jobs (not the endless admin and producing and hoping that our work will be fairly remunerated, but the making and performing) is real, and at the same time it’s something we’re paid for. Paid to do it, and to make it look like we enjoy it so the audience goes away satisfied. People should be paid for their work, and that work should be satisfying. Maybe that comes back to the political, so in this show, we’re working hard for you. But in not being a group of ultra-flexible super-fit people who have trained in musicals (although some of us are some of these things) we are questioning what audiences really perceive and what is of value to that audience. The bodies and labour you see are shaped by years of training and lived experiences; what you see is shaped by the work that went into creating this through rehearsals and before those in planning and researching… Like lots of work, the visible labour is only a fraction of what’s involved.

              There’s a lot of humour in your work—why is that important when you’re dealing with topics like capitalism, conformity, and exhaustion?

              If we took a melancholic approach, we could just accept defeat in the face of capitalism, and its demand for conformity and its insistence on exhausting us through labour and consumption. Humour can be a really powerful tool: we might not individually have a lot of power (or capital), but we can resist the demand that we take seriously the values of capitalism and its destructive attitude towards nature and people. There’s room for essays and politics, but we want to deal with some of those things by offering something to smile about.

              You’re performing in Bottoms as well as co-directing. How does being in the work physically affect the way you shape the show and connect with your audience?

              That wasn’t the plan. It turned out we needed another person to make the show work, and so I joined in. It has been hard to hold and carry many hats, and what feels right inside the work doesn’t always look right from outside. Video is a brilliant tool for helping all of us on stage step outside and see what we’re creating. We’re working with a really superb team of performers, shaping lots of the work together. Our process is a bit like sculpture: we’ve got a block of stone and need to let the shape inside it become visible. Sometimes, one area is beautiful but doesn’t match the whole, and we have to reshape or remove it. But also, we’re shaping it to match this company of performers: made with different people, it would look and feel different, and that’s the same with my role in it too. I can’t be in and out at any moment, so more of the design, the conceptual thinking and the composition of the work has taken place between rehearsal weeks – and I think we all benefit from those breaks.

              Tickets for Bottoms can be found here.

              Credit: Andrea Behrends

              IN CONVERSATION WITH: Becca Hoback

              Published on by justinemsjonesLeave a comment

              Coming to the UK for the first time this spring, Nashville-born Becca Hoback and Enactor Productions present Feminal, a confronting dance-theatre double bill exploring what it means to be a woman, through gripping storytelling, choreography, and striking visuals. 

              Feminal dives into deep and complex themes – what was the moment or experience that first sparked the idea for this production?

              I think it’s a culmination of many different experiences and factors. I grew up with a lot of rules and expectations around my own femininity and sexuality, and as a young adult I felt like there was a massive divide between my everyday feminine identity and the kinds of qualities that I embodied and expressed in the dance studio. When I first had the chance to experience and perform Roy Assaf’s Girls, it opened a new kind of rawness and fully-body effort that connected me to my animal body – something that felt like it melded both sides of me into one cohesive woman-creature. My messiness and rawness suddenly felt connected to the way the I expressed my feminine identity, and I took those lessons forward to eventually create Initial Dissent.

              Creating dance-theatre that challenges perceptions is no small feat – what has been the most surprising challenge (or breakthrough) in bringing Feminal to life?

              Finding my voice – both literally as a performer, and creatively as a choreographer – has been a challenging and empowering part of the journey. A Girl challenges me to let my voice be heard. While I feel comfortable once I get to the stage, there is always a threshold I have to pass through in the rehearsal process to allow myself to fully sing, yell, chant, and scream without worrying about what other people in the building may think as I rehearse. Once that seal is broken, I can vocalise and immerse myself in the practice freely. When creating Initial Dissent, I similarly felt myself having to get comfortable with the idea of sharing this highly-theatrical and highly-stylized work – it’s something that naturally flowed out of me once I got in the zone, but I still felt the need to call the first presentation a “work-in-progress.” The structure of the piece hasn’t changed much since that first showing, but my comfortability expressing my perspective and standing by may creative choices has grown. Letting myself be seen and heard in a vulnerable state has been a big journey throughout the creation of Feminal.

              Initial Dissent is a deeply personal work for you – how has the process of developing it shaped your own relationship with its themes?

              Creating Initial Dissent allowed me to revisit many of the roles I played throughout my religious deconstruction process. Each scene offers a different phase of processing, and I fully try to embody the physicality, tension, mentality, and emotional state for each stage. It’s allowed me to look at the whole journey and personally own each part of the process – proudly claiming the role of the “villain” in my former-self’s world view. It’s a very different mindset than the one I grew up with.

              With Feminal making its UK premiere, what excites you most about sharing this work with a London audience?

              I’ve never been to London before, so I’m thrilled to have my first encounter with the community and get a sense of what resonates with folks locally. The two pieces are very different – the first is maximalist and highly theatrical, and the second is more poetically minimal stylistically. I’m so curious to learn about the similarities and differences between the UK experience and the US experience of these themes – If you do come, please stay after the show to chat!

              If you could sum up the emotional journey of Feminal in three words, what would they be – and why?

              Fierce, Confronting, and Vulnerable. The first pieces starts us off in mysterious territory – there’s a certain “bite” to the movement and theatricality. This rebellious spirit is immediately disarmed in the second piece, but all the while I’m looking the audience in the eyes. It’s something that could be intimidating, but I feel throughout the piece it melts into a sort of intimate rawness – of fully being seen by the audience and fully seeing the audience myself. My passion, physicality, and emotionality are on full display in both, and I aim to bring my whole self to the show each time, inviting audiences in to be just as present in the works.

              What do you hope audiences take away from the experience of watching Feminal, and is there a particular moment in the show you can’t wait for them to see?

              Ooh – I don’t want to give too much away! But I am excited for the audience to feel the energetic shift at the start of the second piece, A Girl. It’s a very tender moment, and I’m excited to feel the room sink into a new zone after getting immersed in the intense world of Initial Dissent. This moment in the evening feels like it will be special to experience together.

              Feminal comes to The Space Theatre, London, from 7 – 10 May https://space.org.uk/feminal

              REVIEW: WAKE

              Published on by Lucy CLeave a comment

              Rating: 5 out of 5.

              A bold, glittery celebration of life and grief that’ll have you laughing, tearing up, and dancing in your seat

              It’s not often you go to a show and end up dancing in your seat, nearly crying, and watching someone tap dance in leather — but that’s WAKE for you.

              Brought over from Ireland after two sold-out runs in Dublin, WAKE is a mad, messy, joyful celebration of life, death, grief, and everything in between. It’s loud, glittery, full of heart, and really hard to describe — but I’ll give it a go.

              The idea behind the show is pretty simple: it’s based on the Irish wake — the traditional gathering after a funeral — but it flips it on its head. Rather than being sombre or overly sentimental, this is a wake that celebrates transformation, change, and connection. It mixes old traditions with club culture, so you’ve got traditional Irish music and céilí dancing one minute, and aerial silks, breakdancing and big anthemic DJ sets the next. It sounds chaotic (and it is a bit), but it somehow works.

              Visually it’s stunning. There’s loads going on – aerial performers spinning through the air, gorgeous lighting, someone Riverdancing in full-on clubwear, and even moments of comedy and improv that give it a proper sense of spontaneity. It never stays in one lane for long, which I liked – you never really knew what was coming next.

              What really stood out to me though, was how it handled the heavier themes. Even with all the madness, it still finds space to talk about grief, love, chosen family, and identity. It’s got this strong emotional core that gives the whole thing meaning, and you can tell how much care has gone into creating something that feels genuinely inclusive and heartfelt. It’s definitely got a queer spirit running through it, and there’s a real sense of joy and freedom in how it all comes together.

              There’s also moments of audience interaction — not in a cringey way, but in a way that makes you feel like you’re part of something. It doesn’t feel like performers up there and audience down here — it’s more like a shared experience, which I suppose is very in keeping with the whole “wake” theme. Community, connection, all of that.

              The cast were honestly brilliant. Such a mix of skills — dancers, musicians, poets, acrobats — all clearly giving it their all, and the energy didn’t dip once. The live music was gorgeous too, from the more stripped-back folk moments to the full-on ravey bits that had the whole theatre buzzing. I’ve genuinely not seen a show quite like it.

              If I’m being picky, the first few minutes really caught me off guard — not because they were over the top, but because they were unexpectedly sombre. It was actually the saddest part of the show. Quiet, reflective, and heavy with grief, it felt like a proper funeral moment — that raw, gut-punch feeling of loss before anything else. But as the show went on, that sadness slowly started to lift. Bit by bit, it shifted into something more joyful and celebratory, which made the whole journey feel really moving and real. It mirrored how grief can change shape over time — never fully gone, but softened by connection and joy.

              Overall, WAKE is one of those shows that doesn’t try to be neat or polished — and that’s kind of the point. It’s about messiness, chaos, celebration, and the weird beauty that comes with all of that. You come out of it feeling uplifted, moved, and weirdly grateful to be alive. Which, for a show about death, is kind of perfect.

              If you’re after something a bit different — bold, big-hearted, and properly fun — this one’s worth catching.

              REVIEW: In the Bushes

              Published on by Eoin FentonLeave a comment

              Rating: 3 out of 5.

              In The Bushes clowns around with existentialism at The Place

              Léa Tirabasso’s In the Bushes could well be a very different show when performed for the wrong crowd. The show feels part of the legacy of the be-ins and tanztheater works of the past, with movement and voices coming together to interrogate the banality of existence. Thankfully, Tirabasso gives us full permission to laugh as dancers shriek, cavort, and hump each other with gusto throughout the UK premiere of this frisky, hour-long work. Within the first few minutes the auditorium of The Place began to fill with snorts, snickers, and chuckles — we were game.

              In the Bushes ‘explores the grotesque notion of human exceptionalism’, according to Tirabasso. It’s a daunting subject for most, but she has worked with philosophers and geneticists alike, even hosting talks with medical students just down the road in UCL. The theme suitably fits her medical, physical, and philosophical curiosities. 

              A cast of six stumble onto the stage like babbling infants initially speaking in only squeaks and giggles, their bodies twitching with nerves and excitement. As these ragtag newborns grow, Tirabasso employs an approach of detachment. Rarely verbally coherent and acting in an uncanny, heightened manner, they are not immediately relatable. Like Jane Woodall, we are observing a group of odd apes, a world of unexplainable rituals. In their little biome they perform for us peeping anthropologists the curious innovations of the human species: art, music, religion, sex.

              The movement style is cheeky and a little off kilter. Dancers scurry and bounce awkwardly, they hesitate, and when they’re ready for some mincing they give it hell. One scene of faux-gymnastics is particularly funny as a dancer struts, wriggling and flicking arms as if in the middle of a floor routine, before taking off with semi-confidence that he will land his cartwheels without taking any casualties with him. The clownish antics get laughs, but the schtick does wear thin in saggier moments. And I mean this literally. One dancer, unsatisfied with her developing body, stuffs her top, creating heaving mounds, and invites a gang of eager motorboaters to have a go. 

              The irreverence is a little jarring, at times the characters are so animated one feels like they’re watching a garish children’s cartoon in some strange country with an especially pervy sense of humour. This foreignness works when highlighting Tirabasso’s satire of that bizarre ‘human exceptionalism’ our species is so guilty of. But the insistence on such heightened mannerisms turns the piece from delightful, to droll, to verging on dull.

              Late in the show when the gimmick is dropped momentarily, a real thing of beauty emerges as our bald chimps discover death. They softly guide the spirit of the deceased through the hazy space to Mozart’s Lacrimosa — it’s a cliche but hey, it works. With this moment of touching meditation, Léa Tirabasso has me intrigued for what else she has up her sleeve.