Grounds/re-membering(s)

Both Nux Company and articulate animal are Edinburgh based and use live music. They share a willingness to use dance as a medium for ideas, and have idiosyncratic movement vocabularies. Yet Grounds and re-membering(s) are radically different: Grounds is a solo that takes a journey into interior tensions; re-membering(s) consists of a large group of dancers and musicians who respond to each other, as well as following their own movements.

articulate animal are concerned with improvised miniatures: their twenty minutes is clearly divided into sections, with the musicians leading the dancers and the dancers leading the musicians by turns. The other ensemble - a group of four musicians who also base their work in improvisation – mirror the detail of the choreography with a disjointed conversation between sax, flute, bass clarinet and prepared piano. The force of the dance comes through the attention to detail and the intricacy of gesture and step: from each individual’s isolated dance, a group choreography emerges.

Grounds, a solo by Maite Delafin, accompanied by Poppy Ackroyd on violin, is more immediate. It has a visceral, writhing impact, bringing dark internal conflicts out into the body and directly across to the audience. Like re-membering(s), it uses the slightest move to powerful effect, yet has a clearer line of communication.

As a programme, the two pieces are well-matched examples of contemporary’s interest in new strategies, in particular the important intimacy that live music creates, and the use of the body as a vehicle for expression of ideas and feelings.