Helix Dance

There are national dance agencies throughout the UK and the agency for the East of England, Dance East, has supported Four Quarters, a quadruple bill of new choreography developed at Dance East. Each piece plays with different ways of expressing emotion, combining dance with speech, video, props or song lyrics.

Although dancers are often stereotyped as being verbally inarticulate, artistic director Isobel Cohen expresses herself eloquently with the self-written monologue that interrupts her solo, The Great Escape.
Shahla Tarrant’s Where the Humans Eat, performed by Tarrant herself, continues Cohen’s theme of existential angst, accompanied by a medley of contemporary songs and video footage of domestic life. Cohen and Tarrant both present thought-provoking studies of contemporary female existence.
Cohen and Alex Broadie perform Broadie’s All Ends in Tears, seemingly an exploration of a brother/sister relationship which, with its utilisation of voice and props, is perhaps more aptly described as physical theatre. Steven Johnstone choreographed the final piece, I’ve Been Waiting, and performs alongside two female dancers to music by modern group Fink. New choreography is always laudable but on a sunny August day, more variation in mood and theme would have been welcome, as well as slicker production values.