SILVER CELEBRATION

WHO:VARIOUS ARTISTS

WHAT: SILVER CELEBRATION

WHEN: WED-THU OCT 22-23

WHERE: QUEEN ELIZABETH HALL

TICKETS: 020 7960 4242

For 25 years Val Bourne
has managed to create festival
after festival covering an
extraordinarily wide range
of artists and always taking
the needs and the feelings of
the artist to heart.’
Richard Alston, 2003

‘Dance Umbrella’s inspirational approach
to performance is legendary’ Time Out

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Silver Celebration, 23rd October, 2003, Queen Elizabeth Hall

The Silver Celebration had a muted first half, but celebrated in style after the interval. First we saw “If Not Why Not” a film of a work by Akram Khan and the other four dancers of his Company. Of course, it is always a treat to see Khan’s Modern Kathak and his own extraordinary abilities. However the film was tricksy at regular intervals and given the interest of the dance, I couldn’t see the point. The best section came at the end when the dancers were seen against a white background without a floor or walls. This simple setting provided an appropriate backdrop for Khan’s incisive choreography.

Sara Rudner and Christopher Jenney in “Heartbeat” had the interesting idea of wiring up the former’s heart or more exactly the nerves from the brain to the heart and reproducing this as sound quickening, slowing etc as she moved. We also had narrated text about cardiac theory, jazz vocals and finally a saxophone. This worked for 5 minutes or so, but sadly the dance element from Rudner just wasn’t strong enough to sustain the work for anything like its 18 minutes.

David Gordon and Valda Setterfield worked a small miracle to kick off the second half. In “Duet from Private Lives of Dancers (2002)” we had a snatch of their domestic life with Gordon’s exquisitely timed “Yes” and “No” to Setterfield’s questions as they cleared the stage of furniture. And then they danced in the simplest way possible: walking, half-turning, raising their arms. But the way they defined the space with their movement and their own separations and coming together was fine choreography. Through this we heard the voices of great partnerships from the past – Ruth St Denis and Ted Shawn, Merce Cunningham and Robert Raushenberg, Toni Lander and Bruce Marks. A joyful celebration of a life of dancing together.

Next we two solos from Siobhan Davies’ new work “Birdsong”, which will be premiered in 2004. The opening birdsong was too beautiful for words – not for nothing did Olivier Messaien describe birds as the “greatest composers on the planet”. Henry Montes in the first solo moved and twisted to this music with the suppleness we have come to expect from this superb dancer.

Finally, the Richard Alston Dance Company performed a section from “Roughcut” originally made for Rambert. This is Alston at his most fluent with an attitude in jetée motif particularly attractive. Apart from the excellent Martin Lawrence who has been with the Company for “quite some time”, we saw a lot of new dancers and the girls in particular picked up the snappy approach that the work requires.

Alston dedicated this performance, “For Val, with my love”. Everyone here at CriticalDance salutes the achievements of Val Bourne and all her team from the past 25 years.

<small>[ 25 October 2003, 12:22 PM: Message edited by: Stuart Sweeney ]</small>

Silver Celebration
By Judith Mackrell for The Guardian

Silver Celebration was programmed to commemorate Dance Umbrella's. 25th anniversary. On paper, it looked like a party with the perfect guest list. On the night, though, the guests either turned up in the wrong mood or the wrong outfit: the evening just didn't gel.
Most of the featured artists were Umbrella old-timers. Sara Rudner, who danced in the opening festival, retains her aura of wayward serenity. In HeartBeat she revives the 1983 experiment in which her body is wired to a monitor that amplifies her heartbeat as she moves. It's an idea rich in potential drama - the heart hammering as the dancer pushes herself, pulsing as she rests. Yet the doodling moves to which Rudner confines herself underuse the technology, barely raising her heartbeat above a steady thud.

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Silver Celebration
By Debra Craine for The Times

Earlier in the week, the QEH hosted Dance Umbrella’s Silver Celebration, to mark the festival’s 25th birthday. The veteran choreographers Siobhan Davies and Richard Alston were represented with excerpts: her promising new Bird Song, his dynamic old favourite, Roughcut.

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From The Independent.

MORE

Dance Umbrella Silver Celebration
By Jenny Gilbert for The Independent

The Dance Umbrella festival threw a kind of 25th birthday party for itself last week, in a programme called Silver Celebration that promised a line-up of seasoned oldies and nostalgic hits. But they made an oddly assorted bunch. It felt like one of those family dos where friends find little to say to relatives.

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Silver Celebration
Queen Elisabeth Hall
Thursday 23/10/03

Thursday’s ‘Silver Celebration’ celebrated Dance Umbrella’s 25th anniversary with
a line up of very different works. The evening started with the UK premier film screening
of Akram Khan’s ‘If Not Why Not’ accompanied live by Cellist Philippe Sheppard.
Unfortunately the film’s director or editor clearly had been labouring under the misconception that it was his job to make the material interesting. There were a lot of
swift cuts, tricks and extended eyes or face close ups while the dancer in question was
clearly dancing. The last section of the film, that showed all 5 dancers performing in a
white space seemingly without floor and walls worked best and let Khan’s choreography
speak for itself.

Next Sara Rudner, the American dancer and choreographer who had appeared in the very first Dance Umbrella Festival in 1978 recreated her work ‘Hearbeat’. Using the
amplified nerve impulses that Rudner’s brain sends to her heart and the surrounding
tissue as a percussion sound track the piece explores the heart as both, sophisticated pump and “seat of the soul”. Although this idea is intriguing and the background track
is interwoven with a spoken scientific text about cardiac theory, Jazz vocals and even
a saxophone solo Rudner’s choreography is not engaging enough to sustain the work
through its 18 minutes. Less time would have been more.

After the interval David Gordon and Valda Setterfield performed a duet from ‘Private
Lives of Dancers’. Gordon’s dead serious ‘yes’ and ‘no’ replies to his partner’s
questions while they cleared the stage off furniture were just perfect in their comic
timing. Then the couple danced, walking forwards and backwards, half turning,
moving their arms, accompanied by interview snippets of great partnerships of the
past, Gertrud Lawrence and Noel Coward, Merce Cunnigham and Robert Raushenberg
and Toni Lander and Bruce Marks. Gordon and Setterfield’s performance drew a
very enthusiastic response from the audience and the evening took off from there.

Siobhan Davies Dance Company shone in an excerpt from Davies’s brand new piece
‘Bird Song’ which is due to receive its full length world premiere in spring 2004.
Henry Montes was spellbinding in a solo set to a score mainly consisting of a very
beautiful bird song recording. His fluid performance did the beauty of the score
full justice. If this excerpt is anything to go by ‘Bird Song’ will be one of the 2004
‘must-sees’. I for one can hardly wait.

Last but not least Richard Alston paid tribute to Dance Umbrella “To Val with my
love” with and excerpt from ‘Roughcut’ originally created for Rambert Dance
Company in 1990. His company of 9 dancers positively sparkled and made the most
of the lively bubbly choreography set to Steven Reich’s ‘New York Counterpoint
for clarinet and tape. The evening that had started rather slow ended deservedly on
a high note. I am already curious about what dance delicatessens will be served
up for the Dance Umbrella Gold Celebration in 25 years.