The nature of creation is one of life’s imponderables, kicked around by undergraduates for centuries.
Designer Tal Rosner’s vision of time and space in 8 Minutes is spectacular, coming vividly to life on an enlarged screen into whose images Whitley deftly weaves his seven hugely talented dancers.
Unfortunately the sinking feeling from loudspeakers spouting that nothing plus nothing equals matter took some time for us to get over – scholarly voiceovers and back projections took up too much precious dance time.
But Whitley has chosen seven exceptional dancers who counteract his contrived subject matter with one irrefutable weapon: they are, quite simply, beautiful to watch.
Their talents are polished by Daniel Wohl’s exciting and large scale commissioned score. Highlighting orchestral sections gives an emotional identity to inexplicable space, random blobs of burning pebbles and ultimately human nature.
Wohl’s designs for the piece are powerfully evocative. Whitley, apparently without thinking, overuses modern dancing’s tricks of the trade, such as seaweed-like waving arms for hours on end to replace steps, then standing motionless scattered about the stage while flicking their heads for no apparent reason.
He simply does not need to squash his dancers into squares and oblongs of light on the stage as seen every week in UK contemporary dance programmes, particularly when he has dancers such as Julia Sanz Fernandez and Luke Crook.
They were second in a string of duets exploring the meaning of life from a human point of view in front of an empty universe projected on to the screen. Their techniques are high quality and they move together with a well drilled harmony and unspoken union that only dance can achieve.
Unfortunately there is no lighting designer listed in the programme, just video expert Rosner. This perhaps explains the lack of illumination on the working stage areas where black on black costumes frequently results in long stretches of pink faces and hands bobbing about in space.
Thankfully as the evening progresses and the opening boy’s own conundrum is put back on the shelf, Whitley’s choreography settles into a life of its own. And when fully lit and the dancers in top gear, it is abundantly clear that Whitley has found a dance language with endless potential.
8 MINUTES Alexander Whitley Dance Company Sadlers’ Wells, London EC1 (Run ended; sadlerswells.com)
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