Artistic Director and Choreographer: Tim Rushton MBE

Reviewer: Peter Jacobs

The Public Reviews Rating:

British-born choreographer Tim Rushton has made sufficient name for himself internationally as Artistic Director of Danish Dance Theatre – a post he has held for ten years – that he was awarded an MBE in the 2010 New Year Honours, but he has never felt confident enough to bring the company he has firmly established as the leading contemporary dance company in Denmark – if not Scandinavia – to the UK until now. The company embarked on their first ever UK tour in January and are now halfway through their itinerary of ten venues that notably does not include any dates in London as yet.

The company promise the ‘classical beauty of ballet combined with the power of contemporary dance’ – a combination that is a personal favourite, so this is a performance I approached with a fair amount of anticipation Interviews with Tim Rushton have also proved interesting. Danish Dance Theatre are touring with three works from their not inconsiderable repertoire, so how do they measure up? The first piece is Enigma, which is about riddles or puzzles and also references the wartime decoding machine of the same name. Set to music by Mathias Friis-Hansen, the work sees eight of the company’s dancers seek to understand or ‘decode’ one another through layers of duets and as a group. Featuring some stunning modern pas de deux, you do genuinely get the sense that you are watching movement that you have not seen before. The lines and extensions of classical ballet are there but the choreography is thrillingly contemporary and quite distinctive. Enigma is mesmerising to watch, with all eight dancers showing real individuality and impressive technical skill. Allessandro Sousa Pereira (Brazilian), Milou Nuyens (Dutch), and Ana Sendas (Portuguese) were especially noteworthy – this is a very international company of dancers – but there was a strong sense that you were watching a company seizing their moment, ready to compete, here to impress, confident. My only issue with Enigma is that despite the gorgeous choreography and dancing and the atmospheric lighting design by Thomas Bek and Jacob Bjerregaard, the overly abstract sound score only briefly fully kicked into life and this seemed to undermine rather than underline the fluid and innovative momentum of the dancers.

Second piece was CaDance. This features DDT’s five male dancers in a ‘testosterone-fuelled competition’. Set to an exciting score by Any Pape played live onstage by two drummers, CaDance is a very masculine piece that conjures up images of men working-out, facing up to one another, strutting and jostling for supremacy, competing. Featuring some lovely solo work by Allessandro Sousa Pereira, CaDance is fast moving, exciting – again beautifully lit with soft low-level floodlights and industrial-style pendant lights by designer Mikael Sylvest – and makes for an impressive slab of contemporary male dance, despite being rather one-dimensional. CaDance is a piece that celebrates the physical in a highly enjoyable way without exploring any other aspects of masculinity: there is no tenderness or sensuality here, just speed and heat and muscle.

The company completed their programme with Kridt – which translates as ‘chalk’. This is the most narrative piece of work on show. Based on Peteris Vasks’s suite for strings Musica Adventus and text from Ecclesiastes, Kridt shows a man on the verge of death remembering his life – those he has known and loved and lost – as told by the people who have touched his life. Where Enigma seemed held back by its music Musica Adventus is the most glorious piece of music and perfectly complements Tim Rushton’s exquisite choreography, performed with great simplicity and intensity by his dancers, with Luca Marazia taking on the central role as the dying man. With the words from Ecclesiastes spoken in Portuguese by a mic’ed Ana Sendas (the words are spoken in the native tongue of whichever dancer is taking this role) and with elegant use made of a chalk wall that dominates the back of the stage, Kridt is simply one of the most beautiful and sad pieces of contemporary dance I have ever seen. Music, choreography, cast, lighting (by Anders Poll), chalk and a final falling rain of sand combine to establish, hold and maintain a breathtaking intensity of emotion. A simply beautiful piece of dance.

Tim Rushton has taken his time to establish his creative credentials at Danish Dance Theatre and waited to bring his company to the UK. He clearly has a good sense of timing. Hopefully we won’t have to wait another decade to see them again.

At The Lowry until 9 February.

Tags: Alessandro Sousa Pereira, Ana Sendas, Anders Poll, Andy Pape, CaDance, Contemporary Dance, Danish Dance Theatre, Enigma, Jacob Bjerregaard, Kridt, Luca Marazia, Mathias Friis-Hansen, Mikael Sylvest, Milou Nuyens, Musica Adventus, Peteris Vasks, Salford, The Lowry, Thomas Bek, Tim Ruston ME