Someone once told me that Phoenix Dance Theatre was aptly named after the mythical bird because it only did something interesting once every 1,000 years. Unfair, of course, but the company, despite its dynamic dancers, has been modest in its ambitions, punching below its weight.
Shadows, the premiere in this autumn programme is by Christopher Bruce, a pendant to his 2007 work Shift. Everyone in this busy, lightweight sextet – three women in Rosie the Riveter headscarves, three swaggering lads – is on the assembly line, on the flirt, all jive kicks and lever pulls. It looks good on the rangy, powerful dancers, but lacks urgency or texture.
These come to the fore in Bruce’s new quartet, Shadows. He channels the mid-century experience of war-torn Europe through Arvo Pärt’s bereft, prowling Fratres. Sombrely lit interactions suggest a family under duress or fugitives fearing exile; trauma moulds their fractured body language. People sit tensely at a table, then erupt into tantrum. A man thumps his fists on the floor; a woman (the excellent Sandrine Monin) swivels and buckles in her husband’s arms. Eventually, everyone pulls on a coat, grasps a suitcase tight and steps towards the forbidding unknown.
Darshan Singh Bhuller, formerly Phoenix’s artistic director, provides the tenderly sprawling Mapping, informed by his father’s journey from India to the UK. The dancers get sportive with hand-held cameras, but the best of the piece is in the wheeling arms, and sharp-angled palms and feet. Israeli-Dutch duo Ivgi and Greben’s Document, the juiciest piece on the bill, showcases a disaster-movie vibe: gas-attack staggers, feverish judders, a zombie sway. Under Yaron Abulafia’s smoky, rust-choked lighting, dancers thrash and stomp like a cadre of the undead. It is performed with gamey flair, but this can’t stem the sense that mid-scale British dance needs a shot in the arm – more theatrical gleam, keener formal experiment. Staggering along won’t do.
