Reading about Shobana Jeyasingh's latest work, Surface Tension, we get the idea that surface is the operative word in the title. The programme note promises a work that is essentially, and decoratively, all show. In fact, tension turns out to be a much more apt label for what happens on stage. This isn't a virtuoso display piece that rolls exuberantly off the dancers' bodies: it is a work that seems held together by an act of will.
Jeyasingh's score is a piece for tape and prepared harpsichord by Kevin Volans which is almost a collage of different sound energies. High-pitched oscillations of electronic noise snake over the surface of percussive blocks of sound while the live harpsichord manoeuvres its way between them.
It is a score which demands a constant, nervous attention from its audience, and Jeya- singh's dance exists in a taut relationship to it. Sometimes the dance cuts loose in flights of correspondingly free activity, but often it twitches with anticipation as to where it will be taken next. Much of the choreography is created out of tiny, edgy effects. A twist of one dancer's wrist or a tilt of her torso sets up a rhythmic spark with another dancer's activity, so that the stage is often alive with jagged squibs of movement.
At the other extreme, Jeyasingh stretches out her movement like an elastic band. The dancers traverse the stage in slow, drawn-out lines, hovering in moments of stillness before their bodies snap back into action.
Within this interaction of pure space and energy, individual parts of both dance and music are mesmerising, and made all the more so by the hot, tropical lighting, which bathes the stage in a sunset of colours. Yet, on first viewing, Surface Tension feels more like rehearsal notes than a completed work. It is fascinating in its procedures but lacks the focus, the singleness of vision to create a powerful identity.
The new piece is paired with Palimpsest, created in 1996 but redesigned, with great panache, by the team who worked on Surface Tension. For all its interior drama, its impression of collusion between the dancers on stage, this actually looks like a far more virtuoso work. The performers fly between extremes of fleet-footed speed and delicately coiled decoration. It is a densely woven piece of dance and it makes an excellent showcase for Jeyasingh's current company. Having lagged technically behind her best invention in the past, they are now beginning to look as sharp and versatile as Jeyasingh's own vision of them.
***** Unmissable **** Recommended *** Enjoyable ** Mediocre * Terrible
