A voiceover has started churning out phrases even as the audience continues to file in for the performance, and the dancers are seated on the stage, ready to go. What is being said becomes clearer once the lights go down and the audience can focus: it’s a series of statements about England’s history. It doesn’t go all the way back to ‘1066 and all that’, but the British Empire gets multiple mentions. And then this: on what happened to be the night before the UEFA Euro 2024 final, in which England just so happened to be in contention, the words “You hear the call: ‘Your country needs you to play football’” ring out across the Sadler’s Wells auditorium. The words are echoed, so to speak, by way of a giant on-stage screen that displays the words.
Some dance performances, of course, contain no words at all – this one has plenty, including what I assume are verbatim accounts from various people either recalling what it was like to be sixteen years of age, or actually being sixteen (or thereabouts) and giving a present-day account of what it means to live in Britain today. Perhaps predictably, at least some of it resonates with most people, with an account someone had of skipping school to meet The Beatles in person: her mother had spotted her on television news and marched down to where the hoards of screaming fans were. Another, a teenager born overseas, spins a familiar yarn about how her country of origin isn’t really where she belongs anymore but she doesn’t consider herself fully British either. A third person talks about disillusionment with the UK Government over a long period of time. And so on.
In essence, it’s all a bit depressing, with nobody spinning a totally blissful yarn – Theresa May’s infamous story about running through a wheat field without express prior written permission from the landowner is comparatively cheerful. The disembodied voiceover calls to mind Big Brother – not the television series, but the totalitarian leader in George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, particularly when the groups of dancers are repeatedly called back to order. There’s not much in the way of individual freedom of expression here, which paints a portrait of Britain as more oppressive than many politicians and the mainstream media would have us believe.
The most physical section of the evening involved dancers falling to the floor, and getting back up again, and again, and again, and so on, which felt in part like a bleep test and in part like the company was being pulled by an absurdly powerful set of strings. In context, it was rather harrowing to see, even if there was some elegance and beauty in a brilliantly well-coordinated set of movements. They don’t call themselves the National Youth Dance Company for the sake of it. But it felt a tad too conventional: starting slowly and gradually building up to a borderline frenetic crescendo, the show didn’t, for me, showcase the sheer anger and frustration the younger generations have over – well, anything from climate change to the cost of living crisis to peer pressure and online bullying.
Nobody strays too far from the group. There is safety in numbers, and in the seemingly perpetual falling and rising back up again of dancers, the production suggests that to quote the title of a book by American clergyman Edwin Louis Cole (1922-2002), Winners Are Not Those Who Never Fail But Those Who Never Quit. When the sequence eventually comes to an end, and exhausted dancers are helped back to their feet by their fellow company members, the show also suggests that we shouldn’t look to or trust the Government (easily done these days), but rather our family, peers and neighbours around us. A considerable number of people out there have been let down by friends and loved ones too, but that is another show for another time.
Review by Chris Omaweng
If you spoke to Britain, what would it say? Wall asks a group of young people from around England to say what they think – the good, the bad, and the ugly. The old and new… Oona Doherty creates a new work in which the dancers keep getting up and keep showing us their real strength and beauty, in a repetitive movement of resistance, stamina and will. Their greatness in Britain.
DANCERS
Aleesha Moyo (Leeds)
Anya Rakshit (Derby)
Aoibh Ryan (Manchester)
Ayuna Berbiodaeva (London)
Charly Knights (Leamington Spa)
Daisy Bilsland (Ashford)
Ernie Shorten (Somerset)
Francis Henry (Leeds)
Frank Thorpe (Sheffield)
Fue Akama (Huddersfield)
Georgia Coulson (Penzance)
Gilbert Dicks (Cambridge)
Jacob Lincoln (Ipswich)
James Airey (Chesterfield)
Kitty Newton (Haslemere)
Lina Kasasa (London)
Luis Green (Folkestone)
Luke Pele (Birmingham)
Matthew Atkinson (Durham)
Meeri Niva (London)
Megan Chaytor Wilson (Durham)
Megan Georges (Hertfordshire)
Monét Brooks (London)
Morgan Heimsoth (Newbury)
Otis De Ville Morel (Okehampton)
Phoebe Mufushwa (Winchester)
Rosa Boadie-Soumah (Leeds)
Roselynn Gumbo (Manchester)
Rowan Williams (Somerset)
Ruben Morais (Devon)
Venus Shury (London)
Wray Maxwell-Mulligan (Manchester)
CREATIVES
Guest Artistic Director/Choreography – Oona Doherty
Photo and Video Design – Luca Truffarelli
Costume Design – Ryan Dawson Laight
Lighting Design – John Gunning
Composers – Mark Leckley, Luca Truffarelli, Shamos (Shane Connolly)
Creative Caption Designer – Ben Glover
National Youth Dance Company (NYDC) presents
WALL by Oona Doherty
Sadler’s Wells, 13 July 2024, then tour continues to 29 July 2024
