If Tommy Franzen had been born 100 years ago, he’d have been a natural on the music-hall stage. It’s hard to think of a dancer who’s better suited, now, to channelling the spirit of vaudeville clown turned movie legend Charlie Chaplin.
In Smile, a solo directed by Kate Prince, Franzen riffs expertly on Chaplin’s signature moves. He morphs from a pitch-perfect mimicry of the shuffling walk and flickering slapstick into an exuberant fusion of jazz-age dance and hip-hop. If only Smile had the confidence to believe this smart physical portrait sufficed. But when it aims to go deeper into the darkness of Chaplin’s life, it strays into a facile terrain. Dim lighting and anguished glances are the cliches, not the reality, behind the smile.
Franzen’s solo opens a triple bill by three of the Wells stable of associate artists. As a showcase, it’s an attractive concept, but it makes for uneven viewing and the high point of the evening is Crystal Pite’s duet A Picture of You Falling. The story of a relationship – from first glance to violent rupture – is dissected into a bare sequence of text and movement; yet as the material is repeated and recast it reveals new levels of emotional and sensual meaning. Pite structures her work with a thrilling intelligence and choreographs with a detail that makes you feel passion and unease under your own skin.
Hofesh Shechter’s the barbarians in love is a dialogue between the exquisite order of its baroque score and the innocent, unadorned physicality of its six dancers. There’s superb stuff here: juicy, nervy ensembles and a wittily unsettling commentary. But, losing its clever grip in the closing section, this piece still feels like a work in progress.
