As part of the Dance Reflections festival presented by Van Cleef & Arpels, choreographer Ioannis Mandafounis brings his production Join, to the new Sadler’s Wells East which is a cavernous, subterranean space where every inch of the stage is used throughout the sixty-minute performance.
This is dance in its purest form, with no backdrop or set, no programme notes to follow, and it celebrates Ioannis Mandafounis’s intention of joining professional dancers and students together. Join is a travelling performance that is different in every city it arrives in. In London, it is members of the Rambert School who provide oodles of youthful vigour for the collaboration. There are almost three dozen performers in all, thirteen of who sit in the front row of the stalls and spontaneously leap onto the stage to join in the action. The effect when everyone is moving at once is astonishing – and there is one powerful moment when the whole cast is running around so hard that they create a headwind that can be felt across the theatre.
Watching this show is like discovering a new species (homo-terpsichorean, perhaps?) that lives to dance, dances to live and dances because they live. The dancers’ alien world is full of music. We don’t know where it comes from, but it throbs and punches the air – maybe it is only in their heads? They share this extraterrestrial world with strange, eight-limbed, two-headed creatures that plod slowly and obliviously across the stage. These odd beasts seem unaware of the animation around them and shuffle on their way like caterpillars. Perhaps they will one day hear the music too and transform, butterflylike, into the vivacious, oddly dressed beings that flit around them. As the show continues, the dancers seem to become more aware they are being observed. At one point they crowd the edge of the stage and stare out at the audience, challenging the rules as to who is watching who. Unexpectedly, they also change up their environment, and as the lighting becomes ever more stroboscopic, the stage comes to resemble a rave (or perhaps a tribal ritual) and the show reaches its conclusion with the dancers breaking out of the confining stage and streaming into the auditorium.
The show is like a poem. It means what you want it to mean, and the performances are poetic in their delivery of grace, energy, and athleticism. It may not be for everyone – it is very staccato, there is very little narrative, and the wild, improvisational style of the choreography can feel a little repetitive. It is genuinely experimental, and some ideas are more successful than others. The lighting effects towards the end seem like an unnecessary affectation, and, crucially, the show is a few minutes too long – it hits what feels like a very satisfying climax only to shuffle on a little longer than it ought to, which undermines its impact in those closing moments.
But no one could deny the power, energy and sheer vitality of the performance that leaves everyone, cast and audience alike, breathless.
Review by Fiona Gilbert
Two groups of dancers join forces at different stages of their personal and professional careers.
In each city this work is performed Dresden Frankfurt Dance Company reimagine this work with a different group of dance students. In London they come together with Rambert School to explore what connections are possible. Ioannis Mandafounis brings together a large cohort of dancers, drawing on the traditions of the company founded by William Forsythe.
Part of Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels Festival
Ioannis Mandafounis / Dresden Frankfurt Dance Company
JOIN
Sadler’s Wells East
22 and 23 March 2025
