You may come to a night of breakdancing, or b-boying, with certain expectations: urban, gritty dance; performers spinning impossibly on their necks; fierce raw energy that's a bit rough around the edges. But Wilkie Branson's new show, blending dance and film, confounds such expectations with its range of moods and dance styles, and an emotional backdrop that is tender and beautifully staged.
The story is essentially a journey to a sense of completeness that it can be read in many ways – coming to terms with yourself, finding kindred spirits in life, or the transforming power of friendship and love. Two young men, Branson and Joel Daniel, dance their way from isolation to crisis and then to a powerful unity, rescuing each other along the way.
The tale plays out between film and stage, melting back and forth, accentuating key moments with stirring new music written for the performance. On film, it plays out in a dense wood full of nooks to get lost in, dizzying slopes and a treacherous river. On stage, it's a starker scene, framed only by random, lonely branches suspended in the dark air as if caught in a freeze-frame after a terrible storm.
The film rather steals the show, to be honest, with some extraordinarily evocative landscapes and vivid scenes. There's a brilliant moment of playful exuberance as the dancers fling themselves through the wood like mad March hares; another when, exhausted, they climb a magical endless staircase of cascading water. We don't really need the reprise of scenes at the end, and you want a more creative finale, but until then, this is a gripping and magical journey through the dance of life.
