One to catch: Iona Kewney

Audience reactions to Iona Kewney are always similarly varied. Some people cover their ears from Joe Quimby’s guitar loops. Others look sore offended at this gymnastic tour de force, asking where the technique has gone. A few are puzzled. Then some people realise that the immediacy of Kewney’s movement, the impossible contortions and moments of livid ecstasy are the fulfilment of contemporary dance’s promise to escape ballet’s restraint and to forge new art from the potential of the body and the depth of imagination.

Within fifteen minutes, Kewney asks the big questions: how free can we be? What is choreography? Why has dance become so polite, and couldn’t we do with more work that crosses psychedelic distortion and physical presence? While it is possible simply to marvel at her prowess, the moments of elegance that slip between her feats are shining drops of revelatory grace.