The bringing together of the oldest and largest contemporary dance ensemble in the UK and the artistic triumvirate of (La) Horde was a fascinating prospect, especially given the idea of the whole event, a triple bill, being a raucous party, as indicated by the collective title of Bring Your Own (a throwback to many such invitations in my student days – although sadly, too long ago to really remember!).
For those not in the know – and until recently I was one of them – (La) Horde is the name of an artistic collective, created in 2013, comprising Marine Bruti, Jonathan Debrouwer and Arthur Harel. Six years later they took on the job-sharing directorship of Ballet national de Marseilles and despite that full-time foray into dance, split three ways, their interests spread right across the arts.
If Rambert x (La) Horde was a mouth-watering prospect, the eventuality of Bring Your Own was a mixture of the (very) good and the (slightly) disappointing, although it was certainly never boring! One significant plus, was the exuberant and ebullient endurance and notable idiosyncrasies of the Rambert dancers, each one of whom managed to shine out of the crowd during the programme, especially in the longest and final piece, Room With a View (which, incidentally, has nothing whatsoever to do with the Merchant Ivory film of the same name!).
On the evidence of this programme, there is no doubt that (La) Horde make dance for Millennials and no doubt either that Rambert is capitalising on the same agenda for youth. The whole evening felt like observing a rave or a group of young people letting off steam in a car park (or an outdoor basketball court), although the cavernous open space of the Queen Elizabeth Hall was unsuited to that feeling of voyeuristic intimacy.
To my mind, the new work, shown first, was the pick of the bunch. Hop(e)storm began that idea of young people outdoors with half-a-dozen women facing off against a similar number of men. First the women ran at their partners jumping straddle style against their chests and toppling both to the floor; then the men wised up to this assault and caught their partners in mid-jump, while standing their ground, and this opening sequence ended, slightly menacingly, with the men kettling the women into an upstage area. If it seemed that Hop(e)storm might have an unsettling, even abusive, theme that all disappeared like snow in the spring when the work took on a bouncing dynamic, as if the ensemble had moved indoors to practise Lindy Hop. At several junctures the dozen dancers linked arms and kicked out their legs like a mixed-gender tribute to the Tiller Girls! Hop(e)storm possessed a continuing energy that was infectious, and the dancers were stupendous.
The first of the works transferred from Marseilles was Weather is Sweet and it was unsurprising to read that an intimacy coach was involved in this staging, since it is replete with the artifice of enough sexual couplings to illustrate a mini-Kama Sutra. The blurb told me that it was inspired by the LA club scene, and it appears to take an Armistead Maupin approach to fragmentary encounters, each of which unravels into a mix of consensual, often tender, and non-consensual sex acts. As such, it is not always comfortable viewing, although there were certainly moments of humour in the erotic playfulness.
The evening ended, post-interval, with the longest work – the aforementioned Room With a View, or rather a lengthy extract from what would appear to be an even longer work. Even as an extract, it felt too long with the same theme of youthful anger given multifarious treatments (often involving the dancers confronting the audience with silent screams or their middle fingers raised aggressively).
The costumes, as with the earlier works, were designed by Salomé Poloudenny but there was no similarity in any two outfits, meaning that each of the seventeen dancers (inaccurately, the programme stated only twelve) was dressed as an individual. There were the sporty types (vests, bare torso, tracksuit, bra top etc), but one male dancer bravely wore a shirt and tie for this marathon of endurance while a female counterpart wore tights and a leotard with a breast-revealing gap. Simone Damberg-Würz wore a black slip and shorts with thick calf-length boots. This striking individuality for each performer was in direct contrast to the largely group-based choreography, within which individuals and small groups broke away to do their own thing before rejoining the aggressive group dynamic.
Ballet national de Marseilles appeared in London themselves as recently as March and so a direct comparison between (La) Horde’s own dancers and these that they have borrowed is inevitable. The Rambert squad is very much a new generation, and it is an eclectic and excellent group but somehow, I felt they lacked the visceral intensity and pulsating whole-company strength of the Marseilles ensemble.
