Review: Outsider, Sadler’s Wells

Arguably the best-heeled festival in the city, your little theatre reviewer returned to the Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels Festival for much more than just the free champagne (although that didn’t hinder). Cantering onwards after his sell-out 2023 Corps Extrêmes, Ouramdane refuses to be grounded.

20 dancers of the Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève in Gwladys Duthil’s striped black and nude costumes look like a cross between the more over-the-top bodycon dresses of the 2010s and a weasel. Kicking things and running in circles, they pick up pace flinging into each other with some divine little lifts and springs. Like a well-trained Spartan army, their athleticism is formidable. The comparison doesn’t end there as, classically, they are basically half naked.

“One, two, three, four” shouted by one of the company is the only thing breaking up Julius Eastman’s invocating piano hammering. Mimicking waves, the dancers suddenly form a corridor for which to throw a smaller dancer down, supporting them in a curving arch of slow beauty and great skill. After fleeting moments of physical intimacy, they then repulse each other like magnets, throwing their partners back into the seamless cycle of jogging.

So far so frisky, a bit gymnastic, a bit flash mob, and a whole lot of dance (shocker). But we cannot ignore the zip wires crossing the bare stage’s upper reaches like the clumped telephone wires of Bucharest. Four extreme sport athletes (tightrope walkers for those who haven’t read the blurb) slide in overhead in an odd half-seated position, arms flung wide as they slowly ease into our vision. They draw a lot of the focus suspended up there, a mix between the spiders from the Hobbits, leopards dragging their kill up into safety, and some very dour circus performers. They wobble, swing, and teeter over the action as the dancers do their own thing, whirling and rushing below. Breath is well and truly snatched, the possibility of failure an age-old thrill.

But we predictably adjust pretty sharpish. Quickly it becomes a show of two parts as the connection between our arboreal friends and their terrestrial cousins is strained. Eastman’s repetitive circling of a score becomes a little wearing and lends a rather relentless feel to everything. The tightrope strollers, although majestic, are rather stuck up there, and although some nice leaping and grasping from below is attempted they feel rather forgotten at points.

But if you want an evening that reminds you of the joy of taking to the trees and the unbeatable spirit of the human body, Ouramdane says hold my climbing chalk. Upwards my little gibbons, safety from the frothing foam of humanity’s rush is yours – if only for two nights.

Directed and choreography by : Rachid Ouramdane
Composed by: Julius Eastman
Co-production with: Chaillot – Théâtre national de la Danse

Outsiders has completed its current run.