August is the month for the free dance festival Blitz - renamed Blazing 2000 - on London's South Bank, with its workshops, exhibitions and daily performances. The star attraction this year is Anjali Dance Company who, after a three-day residency, performed Prosperous Beach, an evocative "mood" piece created with choreographer and performer Matthew Hawkins. An ex-Royal Ballet dancer, Hawkins's style combines camp eccentricity with a classical preoccupation with detail, line and form.
Anjali is unusual in the respect that its performers have learning disabilities. The company challenges the existing stereotype in dance - one that is obsessed with "perfect" bodies and virtuosic technique - by presenting us with differently abled bodies who excel in honesty, humour and sensuality. It seduces its audience by presenting work that doesn't so much show off the dancers' extraordinary grasp of technique but rather their personalities and their committed interpretation of the choreography.
Dressed in elegant black costumes that parody Ancient Greek style and have a cheeky, camp aesthetic, the dancers inhabit the performance space in a series of dignified friezes. They weave through small movements and intricate gestures with a mysterious sense of purpose while the music of Richard Strauss and Mendelssohn lends an air of demure authority to their intimate actions. The aesthetics of balance and harmony, which Hawkins is so good at creating, appear no less with these dancers, who are mesmerising.
Anjali promotes an exciting new precedent for disabled dance, one that is about visibility, confidence and glamour. The company asks us to challenge our preconceptions about what dance is and how we look at it.
Anjali will be appearing at the Clore Studio, Royal Opera House, September 19-24. Box office: 020-7304 4000. Blaze 2000 information is on 020-7960 4242.
