Richard Alston often seems to be motivated more by musical obsession than by a desire to make life easy for himself as a choreographer. The first of his two new works, Tremor, is set to Shostakovich's Third String Quartet, a score more naturally suited to solitary listening than to the glare and activity of the stage. The second, Fever, is set to the more obviously dance-friendly Monteverdi, but to a recording of the composer's Madrigals and Sinfonias by the Concerto Italiano, under Rinaldo Alessandrini.
It is no accident that the titles of both works suggest a fiercely physical response to their scores, for Alston is rarely less than passionate. Yet both works tell us more about the way Alston translates notes into steps than about the stories he may hear in his scores.
Alston's programme note eloquently describes Shostakovich's quartet as a work of bright surfaces and dark shadows, subtly conveying the terrors of life under Stalin. Yet the drama he conveys in his choreography tends to be one of scale and texture rather than graphic body language. In the opening movement a passage of near-unison dance fragments into separate lines as the dancers ricochet against the increasingly jagged phrasing of the strings. At the close, when a single violin plays against the murmuring of the other instruments, the dance pares down to a duet so intimate it barely takes up space.
Only in the dark central section is there the feel of a narrative subtext as Pari Naderi and Lee Clayden's duet becomes fraught with backward glances, tiny knocking rhythms of feet and warding gestures of the arms. But while this passage chimes with hints of danger, it is not enough to create a theatrical whole. Shostakovich's quartet is long and episodic, and because Alston avoids imposing his own logic on to it, the dance lacks dramatic momentum.
The same is true of Fever. The tone of this work ought to be very different, drenched as it is in golden light and set to Monteverdi's rushes of sound. Early in the piece Naderi rapturously arches her upper body as if trying to drown herself in the music. Following her lead, the rest of the dancers mould themselves languorously against each other, or shiver in sudden frenzies of movement. But Fever rarely takes us beyond each beautiful, supercharged moment; it rarely makes us curious about what is coming next. This is partly a product of its musical purism, but it is also partly a problem created by the youthfulness of Alston's company. Apart from Naderi and the excellent Martin Lawrence, we don't seek out individual dancers in the choreography. As performers they add little drama to the stage. They are still just bodies making shapes to music.
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