REVIEW | Atomos,Wayne McGregor

photography source : http://waynemcgregor.com/productions/atomos

I feel like the amount of Dance that Leicester is allowing us to be able to watch and be a part of is growing by the minute and for me this is awesome. As someone who has a real interest in Dance and what it does for our culture and education I think it's important to review and talk about that Dance that Leicester are showing us in the hope it'll create new and excitable audiences through the doors of theatre's and dance spaces all over my home city.

Wayne Mc Gregor is a iconic contemporary choreographer who for the last 20 years has created dance work which questions the relationship between art and science through the body and mind. With the development of technology so visible to our everyday life it's something which soon integrates into dance and provides something new and exciting for us to see as audiences. This work is what has made Wayne McGregor such a forefront of contemporary dance and I was so excited to watch his company perform, because I hadn't already.

source : http://www.photodesign-wolfsburg.de/blog-reader/items/movimentos-festwochen-der-autostadt-22.html

The piece introduced us to ten memorising bodies in the space with flawless technique and flexibility with ease. The choreography was sculptural, balletic and rigorous with only a few moments of pause involved to allow us to take a breath for the dancers. The use of light by lighting designer Lucy Carter allowed the space around the dancers to have such depth that the space felt like an going void. It was stunning.

The beautiful balance in body shapes, gender and race of the dancers showed an equal field and the width of dancers we have in our sector and the acceptance that this is a thing that should be celebrated. All dance bodies are beautiful right? The equality in Male and Females also allowed the space for beautiful imagery to be created with duets, solos and group numbers throughout the piece. I couldn't keep my eyes off the amount of imagery that was created with each and every body in the space. Each dancer in the space had a beautiful sense of focus, strength and control in their movements, some of the balances couldn't be faulted.

I thoroughly enjoyed the use of film by filmmaker Ravi Deepres, in particular when there was a 3D section added to their piece and as audience we became involved in the piece of work. The 3D screens sometimes became a distraction to what the dancers were doing and you found yourself focusing primarily on what the screens in space were trying to show us. It wasn't long when I personally took off the glasses as I was so engrossed in the experience of the dancers as they moved. I was really curious to see what other audience members experiences were to this part of the section.

The classical styled music by composers A Winged Victory For The Sullen brought together a score which completely suited the energy and fluidity of movements produced by the dancers.

I can't believe how much I enjoyed this piece by Wayne McGregor and how different I thought it was compared to a lot of other contemporary dance pieces I have seen in previous years. I would definitely be interested in seeing more dance pieces just like this one.

Disclaimer: I was invited to the performance of Atomos by Wayne McGregor's Dance Company at Curve Theatre in Leicester in return for this post to be published. The photos were sourced from the Wayne McGregor website here but all views are mine. 

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