Engel @ Zoo and State of Mind @ the Space

My declaration that "contemporary dance" is dead was perhaps premature. There is still dance that is best described as "contemporary" because it feels uprooted from any single tradition without necessarily forging a new sense of theatrical freedom and experimentation.

Engel and State of Mind are both works from young companies: they allude to other choreographies - State of Mind has passages that recall that "lyrical" dance that is based on balletic technique, while Engel's use of a big dust circle is undeniably a steal from Bausch's Rite of Spring. There is plenty of emotional bravery on display, and a youthful willingness to make large statements about the nature of being.

Engel is full of serious intent: a live musician on guitar, voice and loops, a stageb covered in dirt, dancers alternating between erotic fantasy figures and tormented souls. The perfect spiral pattern worked into the dust is eroded, and the dancers are gradually reduced to exhausted wrecks, laid out on the floor and creating dust angels in the dirt.

Unfortunately, Engel fails to ever take off: while dance can lend an abstract intent to difficult ideas, the movement vocabulary, which is a relatively generic fusion of European dance theatre and Cunningham technique is predictable. The dancers are sincere and attack the work with vigour. It's a solid work, but refuses to get past a generic vision of dance that quotes the past without adding anything experimental.

State of Mind is clearer: it nails the pain of frustrated desire. There are iconic moments: the veiled dancers that open and close the show, the angst-ridden repetitions that follow from Yvonne Rainer's task-based post-modern dance. A chap whirls a sword around, a vision of sexual threat. Couples twitch in pain, isolated and alienated.

The Fringe is an appropriate place for Z Theatre Company and Sogni to present their work - as long as they are not hoping either to receive high star ratings or make dance more accessible. There is much of interest in both pieces, but chiefly for the dance enthusiast.

I am witholding stars from this review, simply because both Engel and State of Mind deserve the opportunity to find an audience and present their developing choreography. Yet they are far from being easily accessible: to pin them with a star rating would be unfair. They certainly throw themselves in the dance, and are testing how existing forms can be blended for them as dancers. They are to be praised for their bravery.