Last issue we brought you a preview of the Rambert Company’s Comedy of Change, where one of the show’s science consultants revealed the inspirations from the animal kingdom which guided the choreography.
The Comedy set a brooding tone after the first piece. The two-tone black and white jumpsuits donned by the dancers for the first phrases were designed to represent the different characteristics of organisms and their ability to blend in or stand out against nature.
Their slow, deliberate early movements were particularly apt phrases for representing bodies testing themselves reflexively against their environment and each other, concealing and revealing themselves against the eerie backdrop of the stage, a heavy black canopy bathed alternately in green and golden light.
This prevailing darkness, and the chitinous white cocoons from which each dancer first breaks free, evokes a deep and primordial emptiness, nature in its obscure and precarious beginnings. The dancers mould their bodies into outlandish but symbiotic shapes, create pyramids and linked movements, becoming ever more fluid, complex and nuanced.
The visual metaphor for evolution is deft and strangely mesmerising, and we could even see the logic of the animal mating rituals discussed at the preview at work. Each phrase was a cycle of synchronisation, variation, imitation and rejection.
Later, the males adopted full white suits and the female black. Possibly this was intended to represent the emergence of bigger, differentiated species, and interactions of the dancers became more individual, though they still danced in imitation of each other. With their faces masked, the dancers at once seemed something closer to human but also more unsettling, more predatory – in fact I was convinced I had found a candidate for a new Doctor Who monster race.
Watching contemporary dance can be difficult if you’re not a devotee – it requires a dedication of attention. However it’s impossible not to be impressed by the poise and control on display, and if let yourself become absorbed every single move is open to a world of interpretation.
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