Lucy Boyes One Removed @ DanceBase

When movement comes so naturally to some performers, it can be hard to tell whether there has been any rehearsal involved beforehand. As it turns out in Lucy Boyes’ new, live dance, sound and photographic performance, there has and there hasn’t.

With an element of audience interaction, Lucy Boyes and Jack Webb have chosen to let their spectators pull their strings and, without the option of a chair to sit on, the audience are far from ‘removed’.

As some of us stand, and others’ sit on the floor, nobody is watching from a distance, and by this very act alone, the production becomes a personal one.

Like the sound of tap dance, the noise of fast fingers typing brings movement to the stage as the two lithe dancers twist and stretch deftly on square beds of grass.

From birdsong, to animal growls as audience members’ press a keyboard to provoke responses from the dancers, to Boyes’ and Webb’s instinctive moves, the natural world runs through the show from beginning to end.

In the background, a reporter talks of “sophisticated structures,” and the duo are a semblance of these. Muscular and toned, their bodies are symmetries of their hard work. Able to hold the weight of each other from head to toe, the couple have a chemistry that is second to none. With searching eye contact you can see the pride that they take in their performance, as their breathlessness and sweat reflect the hard work that has gone into it.

As the familiar sound of heavy rain beats onto a pavement and a hum of confused news reports’ filter through your ears, the sound effects a real world, where you cannot fly, are present too. But as Boyes stands on Webb’s shoulders, the pair offer one a reminder that anything is possible – and as they have shown, the key is to come together and to work as one.

Improvisation can be a risky business on a live stage but it can also make talent stand out even further.

With little to fear, and everything to gain, Boyes and Webb have shown that improvisation is not just for the quick, comedy set, and that dancers can think and act just as sharply on their feet.