Photography by Paul Hughes
Artistic director Vicki Balaam has ensured that everything is presented with panache, and that all the artists interact seamlessly.Liz Arratoon — The Stage
Next Performance:
Photography by Paul Hughes
Artistic director Vicki Balaam has ensured that everything is presented with panache, and that all the artists interact seamlessly.Liz Arratoon — The Stage
Next Performance:
Published: 31 March 2008
Photo: Nick Robertson
At The Place Theatre in London Spring Loaded is in bloom again. This annual season (ending May 17) spotlights nearly two dozen choreographers or companies whose work represents some of the most notable contemporary dance now being created in Britain. One of those companies is the Surrey-based StopGAP, an outfit of only four dancers some with physical or learning disabilities.
And what estimable performers Lucy Bennett, Laura Jones, Chris Pavia and Dan Watson are. StopGAP has existed for just over a decade, under the direction of Vicki Balaam. This versatile quartet has been together about half that time. Their knowledge of one another shows in the security and daring with which they move, and the emotional honesty that they bring to even the most stylised actions or situations seems second nature.
StopGAP's current show is a modular selection of seven short dance commissions, the Portfolio Collection. It will be presented in full at The Place next week, after which the company tours until mid-May. I caught a truncated version at the Hawth in Crawley, West Sussex, where an appreciative audience was bowled over by the company's playfulness, range and passion.
Filip van Huffel created the curtain-raiser, Corpus, about five years ago. It has since become a company signature piece, a tumbling spin for four exuberant partygoers, whose joyous friskiness is underscored by tenderness and a discomfiting melancholy. A lovely work with dancing to match.
One of the pleasures of The Portfolio Collection is how dances by a handful of choreographers resonate off one another. Swinging between gyrations and stillness, Hofesh Shechter's contribution is a male duet marked by his signature stealth. Nathalie Pernette balances slow-motion tension and with martial arts moves in service to a curiously Newtonian study of gravity, complete with apples. There is further sneaky wit in Gary Clarke's wild-eyed, fetishistic trio.
The evening's sadomasochistic streak takes a tongue-in-cheek turn via Rob Tannion's full-company piece, in which clichés of Spanish culture are invested with a stab of pain and the stage is, fittingly, strewn with blood-red roses.
Published: 10 April 2008
A scene from the touring production of Portfolio Collection. Photo: Nick Robertson
StopGAP places dancers with both physical and learning disabilities alongside non-disabled ones, and what a success it makes of it.
Portfolio Collection showcases nine short pieces by seven diverse choreographers. All are characterised by graphic lighting, dramatic, often filmic music/sound, stylish costumes — including gorgeous sequined knickers and vampish sparkling shoes — and athletic moves. Add to these a real sense of theatre and a light-hearted sense of humour and the results are arresting.
A blinding flash from a row of spots opens the first piece. Choreographed by Hofesh Shechter, Chris Pavia — unhindered by Down’s syndrome — and Dan Watson, dressed all in black, perform in a circle of light. The music and moves — sometimes synchronised — have a tribal feel, as the dancers circle each other, with animalistic crawling or rolling, communicating without speaking.
Rob Tannion’s finale piece is a Spanish-themed love quadrangle, notable for two pas de deux, a stage strewn with red roses and the song, ‘Ay Mi Perro.’ Watson and wheelchair dancer Laura Jones — in a striking flamenco dress — are joined with a long strap that enables them to swing each other around. She has the most expressive hand movements, and a flick of her red fan controls him. He then joins ball of fire Bennett — after she rejects the lovelorn Pavia’s affections for his — in an impressively acrobatic interlude, with some glorious lifts and turns.
Although these two pieces stand out, artistic director Vicki Balaam has ensured that everything is presented with panache, and that all the artists interact seamlessly.
Published: 8 November 2009
Ask Karen Armstrong, the drive behind Glasgow-based Indepen-dance, why she included the professional dance group StopGAP in the weekend showing at Tramway and she’ll say, quite simply, “I wanted people to see them and their work.” Well, hurrah to that.
Three pieces from the Farnham-based company’s Portfolio Collection showed that despite their small-scale they have unlimited ambition and the talent to take on challenging choreographies by Hofesh Shechter, Gary Clarke and Rob Tannion among others. Moreover, they go head-on with issues of identity, love and betrayal. It was blisteringly strong material, potently delivered by all five dancers.
So what about the home team? Artistic ambition flourishes in terms of dance and disability at community level too. A nifty Prelude in the foyer introduced the Young I’s – the Indepen-dance youth wing — before the parent company premiered Whistler, made specifically on the dancers by Lucy Bennett and Sophie Brown of StopGAP. On the surface, this seemed a happy-go-lucky piece about the personalities on stage, whistling John, with his cabin trunk, among them. There were individual vignettes, a playful duet, ensembles where everyone fell into step. But as bits of luggage came and went, the notion of life as a journey crept into the piece, as did images of what it is others remember us by when we’re not there. Come December, Whistler — and Indepen-dance — will be on stage in Spain.
Their knowledge of one another shows in the security and daring with which they move, and the emotional honesty that they bring to even the most stylised actions or situations seems second nature.Donald Hutera — The Times
Blisteringly strong material, potently delivered by all five dancers.Mary Brennan — The Herald
