Four stunning young dance talents from the North East showcased two world premières at Dance City last night.
Fertile Ground, launched in 2013, has a very special mission: to nurture and challenge at least four of the best emerging dancers in the North East, whilst commissioning and presenting world class dance to audiences across the whole region. The company succeeded beyond expectation last night.
This new double bill Play, Pause, Repeat, comprises works by Jamal Burkmar, award-winning choreographer of Jamaican heritage, who originally trained at Northern School for Contemporary Dance (NSCD), Leeds. The second choreographer is German Nigerian Patricia Okenwa, who after training in Germany and then at Rambert School spent 12 years with Rambert Company. She is one of the founding members of London based New Movement Collective, as is Fertile Ground’s Artistic Director Renaud Wiser.
Burkmar’s How to decouple in an ethical way opens the evening with the dancers, Daisy Dancer, Pagan Hunt, Alex Thirkle, and Hayley Walker, all no more than 24, grouped downstage in simple costumes of trousers and tops. They start to shift and break up, moving effortlessly out and across the stage; the choreography flows and twists and is often floor-based, the dancers share some brief moments of unison, emerging and then returning to stage left, then crossing the stage, looking and seeking for something. There are pauses and different timings—it’s all delicious to watch.
What follows is a series of brief encounters and suggested responses to the recorded conversations between a therapist and her client, with three popular songs punctuating them. It’s important to listen, yet at no point is the choreography like mime, nor does it tell you a story. However, by the end, you know you’ve seen something very human that tells us about the power of love, despite the conflict and pain of breaking up (decoupling) and even war. Burkmar’s style has gentle humour, there is a central moment of pain and anxiety, almost chaos, performed to the song "Holy Shit", with the work ending collectively centre stage.
Okenwa’s work The Messiest Drawer starts with the dancers in a square of light centre-stage and has an unusual, nuanced, sometimes dark score with spoken word and violin. Created by Quinta, who has a series of prestigious collaborations behind and with whom Okenwa has collaborated before, the score and the dance take us on a journey from opening and emptying the 'messiest drawer' and responding briefly to the memories good and bad, sad and happy that this evokes. This is fluid, often floor-based, beautiful choreography, not flashy or superficial.
The group wear predominately black and red, sassy costumes, removing an outer layer as they empty the drawer; there is a combination of spontaneous, sometimes edgy movement and some fine duets, particularly the first one. Pagan Hunt performs a reaching, searching solo; finally, everyone returns to pack away the mess, real and imagined of the past and close the messiest drawer, centre-stage, where they had started.
There is no unnecessary storytelling, but both works do have a message, indeed Burkmar’s is quietly political. The stage is clear of set, simply and skilfully lit by Mark Parry and the compositional devices within the dance mean the stage is well used.
What these works share is really good contemporary choreography and a use of improvisation, allowing dancers to bring their own qualities as their different personalities shine through. At the same time, they are a strong ensemble, connected, occasionally smiling warmly and sharing looks.
These dancers form an ensemble for a year or more, before new emerging talents are sought through audition—Fertile Ground offers them an opportunity of a lifetime.
A perfect double bill, you can catch the company at Sunderland College on Tuesday 19 March and at The Malting Berwick on Tweed on Friday 12 April. Further dates will be announced later in the year.