Crack

Bristol is not a city known for its dance.

However, it doesn’t mean that it’s not there. Bristol has a strong emerging dance scene and with the appointment of a new dance programmer at Theatre Bristol, daily classes at DMAC, DanceSpace Bristol and Bristol Community Dance Centre (to name a few) the city is gradually sorting it’s dancing self out. If you want to lindy-hop, belly dance, break, pirouette, tango or zumba your way around the city, you now can.

So what about performance?

As part of Mayfest Crack ventured to see Laban trained contemporary choreographer Darren Johnston’s new work, Ousia, at the Arnolfini. Now if you’re thinking ‘contemporary dance, that’s when you pretend to be like a tree and stuff yea? Then you can fuck off because it’s not. Well, most of the time.

Johnston’s Bristol debut however has set the bar for an interesting year of dance performance at Arnolfini and across Bristol.

In a white box, the audience sit facing a projection of buzzing static onto a wall. Eventually as pools of light appear, it is apparent that the wall is a screen, shapes of figures and curves of body parts emerge from the crackling projection. Set to a minimalist accompaniment, Johnston draws his audience in by giving them glimpses of hidden movement wrapped in projected chaos. Long limbs, subtle turns of the head and slowly developed motifs lull the on looker’s eyes through the static and into the dancer's world.

Now, if you are looking for a piece of strong narrative dance, or acrobatics that blow you away, Ousia is not it. What it is however, is quietly beautiful.

The solitary live dancer, seamlessly merging with the 2D static is ghostly and captivating, their face an expressionless mask. The introduction of a second figure humanises the solo and you can begin to imagine relationships, tales of loss and love in a subtle but moving duet.

You can understand that contemporary dance isn’t everyone’s cup of tea; it’s not always instantly gratifying and the argument that it is elitist has been played like a broken record. Whatever your dance tastes you would hope that Johnston’s Ousia can be appreciated on a number of levels. It’s technologically interesting; in a world obsessed with 3D film and TV it was greatly refreshing to see the reverse effectively deployed. Dancers performing behind a screen of constant static gave the impression that they too were projected, part of the screen and rather than a live performance you were in fact watching a film. It’s something different; diversity is always a winner. Turn on any TV set and you’ll see shows such as So You Think You Can Dance? and Strictly Come Dancing. You won’t see 15 minutes of shivers-down-your-spine contorted contemporary. No sir.

So, what next?

Arnolfini have an extensive dance and movement season coming up. July sees Dog Kennel Hill Project performing, not to be missed (YouTube them, they’re good), Bristol based dancer Laila Diallo performs a triple bill and if all this talk of technology has got your geeky heart racing then visit the Arnolfini website for events coming up including some unbelievable tekkers involving dance and technology, sound and interactive 3D imaging. Go on.


The Dance at Arnolfini season runs from Saturday 11th June to Sunday 7th August. Ticket offers are available for Bristol based dance practitioners – contact the Arnolfini Box Office on 0117 917 2300 or visit:

http://www.arnolfini.org.uk/whatson


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Words: Linzy Nakorn

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