Love & War – The Royal Exchange Studio, Manchester

Choreography: Mark Bruce

Reviewer: Richard Hall

The Public Reviews Rating:

Mark Bruce, who has enjoyed a long association with the Royal Exchange Theatre as a Choreographer and Movement Director, brings his own Company to the RET’s studio with a bold, passionate and provocative new piece of work, LOVE & WAR.

Renowned for the quality of its work and strong grasp of physical theatre, The Mark Bruce Company in this piece continue to extend the boundaries of contemporary dance. In a dynamic and highly energised dance spectacle, figures from myth and legend collide with a host of down at heel characters, including a bedraggled homecoming queen and murderous strangers.

Performed to stunning effect in the round, the audience cannot help but be drawn into what the publicity material chooses to call the “otherworld.” In this mesmerising and seductive vision of hell the brilliant dance ensemble; stir up a hornet’s nest of raw emotions, sexual awakening and violent passion. The piece is dark and bleak, but due to the sheer brilliance of the dancers and a pulsating soundtrack, (including The White Stripes, and Tom Waits), what ultimately emerge are glimpses of breath taking beauty and tenderness.

The joyful sight of a manipulated toy doll experiencing its first steps is randomly shown alongside the crude and unsettling image of a teenage cheer leader’s sexless flirtation. Bruce’s world is disturbing but also strangely alluring and one secretly hopes that both it and the dance will never end.

Each of the seven dancers displays exceptional skill and technique. They establish a wide range of moods and characters through subtle changes in expression, tone and movement. The choreography for the most part is aggressive and violent; however in some passages its lyricism and sheer beauty almost breaks your heart.

This ensemble is one of the most exciting and dynamic dance groups that I have ever seen.

Always inventive and challenging, Mark Bruce controls the piece like a demented circus ring master, squeezing every last drop of theatricality. LOVE & WAR is a must see, it may offend some but will surely entertain many.

Full credit to the Royal Exchange for programming LOVE & WAR. Shows like this have made its studio theatre become one of Manchester’s premier must attend venues.