Fri 16 Jan: ZhouXin Theatre, Babyteeth and Dream

ZhouXin Theatre Doom Box

Babyteeth Woven Souls

Dream Immuto

Nonchalantly lounging in the back row, a headless mannequin greets the audience as they enter the theatre. Hanging from the ceiling, a disembodied arm waves hello. This is just one example of the impressive visual imagery that percolates throughout Doom Box. With a shimmering effervescence, the duo of ZhouXin Theater moves quickly from motif to motif. Each concept seems to disappear as soon as it arrives, leaving the audience without a satisfying climax. Instead, Doom Box is constantly shifting, trading liminality for clarity. What is clear is the strong physical connection between the two performers. The power dynamic between the dancers seems to be in constant flux. Their palpable, almost electric, connection sustains the performance and keeps viewers engaged.

The second duet of the evening was Woven Souls, presented by choreographic duo Babyteeth. The minimalist visual design of Woven Souls stood in stark contrast to the rich visuals of Doom Box. Somehow minimal and melodramatic, the dancers emerge with slicked buns, grey tank tops, and suit slacks to Mozart’s Requiem in D Minor. Undoubtedly strong performers, the piece is punctuated with equally dramatic extensions and balances. At times, the energy of the work overtly relies on the thrumming of the electronic music and the dancers’ technical ability to replicate a feeling of high intensity. Nonetheless, an effect is achieved.

Immuto, by the West-London collective DREAM, strikes a harmonious balance between unity and individuality through street dance. Drawing on the tradition of cyphers, solo dancers often emerge throughout the piece, usually surrounded by the remaining cast, thus giving each dancer the opportunity to showcase both their technical prowess and personality. Despite the large ensemble, Immuto manages to craft something intimately visceral. Though the staging, occasionally, had its moments of awkwardness, the raw emotionality of the dancers drew a powerful connection between audience and performer.

Morgan Holder

Here we are, squarely in the bleak mid-winter, and none of the works on tonight’s bill seek to deny it. DREAM’sImmuto lopes its way through all modes of distress, from panic to resignation, the dancers’ frantic energy matched with throbbing beats and pulses of light. There’s howling, scrapping and clutching of heads (their own and each other’s), some of it a touch overwrought, although there’s something endearing about their chaotic energy, especially when they interrupt their own flustered proceedings for a burst of self-congratulatory high-fives. Brisk breakout solos bring sparks of soul, but the work finds its heart in its stiller moments, including the final scene, the 12-strong ensemble holding hands as they huddle quietly under a warm cone of light.

ZhouXin Theater’sDoom Box is a more cryptic affair, with zigzagging stretches of contemporary dance delivered beneath a tattered hanging mobile that gestures at decay. There’s intention to its various elements – slashes of colourful eye makeup, Munchian screams, an operatic crescendo with a headless mannequin – but not much clarity. Who are these two women to each other, and to us? Its finest parts happen in flashes: a split-second scalloping of a robe, Loie Fuller-style; a nifty lift revealing elite technique. With its meandering structure and oblique register, the piece reminds me of a Patricia Lockwood novel – interesting at a sentence level but difficult to decipher en bloc.

Contrast this with Woven Souls by Babyteeth, which foregrounds strong, lucid dancing to the extent that it eclipses questions of narrative or context. The two dancers here have a similarly vague relationship, but the who and the why pale next to resolute arabesques and stretches of fluent, creaturely partnering. Phrases unfurl organically and lapse instinctively into the next – a solemn, abstract venture with a satisfying momentum.

Sara Veale