Michael Seaver reviews Happy Land Far Away at the Pavilion Theatre in Dún Laoghaire while Peter Crawley reviews Dianne Reeves at the National Concert Hall.
Happy Land Far Away
Pavilion Theatre, Dún Laoghaire
The Cathy Sharp Dance Ensemble has been visiting Ireland for some time now so there's a familiarity with the style of this Swiss company.
As a repertory touring company, being on the road inevitably leads to middle of the road in the type of work it offers a wide range of venues. In fairness the varied programmes, performed by skilled and committed dancers, nearly always cancel any safeness in content.
Sharp's own choreography is usually conceptually simple but tightly constructed using a hybrid vocabulary that looks back rather than forward. Just for Fun. is an apposite example. Set to Kid A by Radiohead and featuring the superb Simone Cavin and Duncan Rownes, it is an innocuous duet that is set on a basic premise of touching the untouchable in an Adam and Eve kind of way.
Filling out every moment of the choreographer's movement, the dancers constantly adjust weight as energy ripples through limbs and torso.
But just when you think you have compartmentalised Sharp she turns out a piece like Happy Land Far Away, a spike in her choreographic output that takes you from the middle of the road to off the beaten track.
Before house lights have gone down and interval conversation ceased, the dancers burst on stage and draw with chalk onstage so in no time the black dance floor looks like a schoolyard. By the time John Tavener's relentless Celtic Requiem kicks in, the mood has changed and the simplicity of the playground has been replaced with fear and insecurities of childhood. Piled high with layers of meaning there is a depth that is transmitted by the movement as much as the theatricality.
Free loose bodies get turned inwards, torsos twisted and gnarled arms embody bleaker emotions.
The games themselves get more sinister as a prostrate body is outlined in chalk and the corpse carried off to begin another game. Alongside Sharp's two works, Regina van Berkel's Out of White seems less certain.
Intentions were clear and performances were excellent but the movement seemed always too close to the shifting dynamics of Kevin Volan's music. ... Continues until April 3rd.
Dianne Reeves
National Concert Hall, Dublin
Climbing down from a flurry of scat singing before pouncing between the octaves of an astonishing vocal range, Dianne Reeves finally unravels the melismatic possibilities of one standard phrase.
Those words? "Good evening ladies and gentlemen." Well, pleased to meet you too! It's a hell of an introduction, encapsulating the power and precision of a voice that - despite numerous career detours - pays tribute to everyone from Billie Holiday to Ella Fitzgerald to Sarah Vaughan, while effortlessly placing Reeves at the end of this noble line.
Despite the recent boon in croon, jazz singers are a distrusted group, decking the rarefied halls of jazz with the welcome mat of song. But far from karaoke standards, Reeves' command of tone and dynamics is as assured as her engagingly warm performance. It is a balancing act that Reeves achieves with perfect poise.
Between the gentle swing of her Vaughan tribute, I Remember Sarah, the soft shimmer and subtle tempo changes of Skylark, and the jazz-rock treatment of Fascinating Rhythm, Reeves' backing trio exhibit perfect control and adept solos without ever stealing the focus.
For such a canny and charismatic performer, Reeves speak endearingly of a childhood oblivious to the double entendres of singing the blues. The rough and tumble of Rocks in My Bed, though, infused with darkly swirling vocals and a bitter wit, hint at a lifetime's education: "I know what they're talking about now," she confesses.
The theme is expanded in the childhood sketches of Nine, at once reassuring with a nostalgic chatter while challenging with rhythmic deviations. Ultimately these divine pivots between gospel-like abandon and blues-style earthiness flavour her jazz.
She may draw the audience to their feet with a sweet and slow Misty, but her unrestrained voice lives in the victory rolls of Endangered Species, in the vibrant groove between songs of innocence and experience.
