London.

FLOW.

The Print Room 34 Hereford Road W2 5AJ To 23 February 2013.
7.30pm
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Sat 3pm.
Runs: 55min No interval.

TICKETS: 020 7221 6036.
www.theprintroom.org
Review: Carole Woddis 7 February.

Liquid physical beauty.
Water has many properties, not many of which often appear in the dance world. At the Print Room, it overflows.

Created from an old graphic design warehouse, in a very short space of time The Print Room in west London has quickly established itself. Despite its slightly dilapidated state, scented candles alert you to a place aspiring to be something a bit different, as do the black waterproof bin liners hanging on the coat rack. You have been warned.

Anda Winters, the present artistic director (the first was Lucy Bailey), reports that the source of her inspiration for Flow was a visit to Venice: the play of light on water, the atmosphere at dusk, the silence.

The piece, bringing together a group of international dancers with former links to the Royal Ballet and Rambert, is an extraordinarily tender but powerful experience that gives a whole new meaning to the word `immersive’.

Flow is truly that, as well as succeeding in translating water’s mysterious impermeable elements into a piece of high quality dance-theatre art.

Designer Tom Dixon creates a sense of movement, not unlike the evanescent effect in the design of the Young Vic’s Feast, initially via a muslin canopy, a dancer and a beam of lights which eventually rises up and disappears to leave three male dancers.

The men lean into each other; they converge, they ease away. The intention is all in the quality of the movement. Hubert Essokow’s choreography (Royal Ballet/Rambert and later Ballet Boyz) may not itself be startling, but it is the seamlessness and succeeding atmospheres that impress.

And what dancers. Pony-tailed Thomasin Gülgeç has something of the mystic about him, Kieran Stoneley a purity of line and Daniel Hay-Gordon (currently touring Coleridge’s ‘Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ with Fiona Shaw), a loner’s unpredictability.

Later, flame haired Sonya Cullingford and Gülgeç build a thunderstorm of tension diffused only by a downpour. As the water flows, floor, dancers and audience all receive a soaking. Finally having splashed their way to exhaustion, it is the sense of renewal – as well as thoughts of tsunami destruction – that linger long.

Dancers: Sonya Cullingford, Thomasin Gülgeç, Daniel Hay-Gordon, Simone Muller Lotz, Kieran Stanley.

Choreographer: Hubert Essokow.
Designer: Tom Dixon.
Lighting: Matthew Eagland.
Sound: Andy Marlow.
Composer: Peter Gregson.
Projections: Kitty McMahon.
Waterist: Mario Borza.
Costume: Anda Winters.
Poem: Water Chant: Richard Thomas.
Dramaturg: Dan Ayling.

Flow, an international dance premiere, opened at The Print Room on 4 February 2013.

2013-02-11 00:38:37