★★★✩✩
For 45 years Dance Umbrella, the annual festival of contemporary dance, has been giving London a window on the world. In the early days it was mostly about introducing British audiences to the incredible vitality of American modern dance in the late 1970s and 1980s. Today the outlook is so global that America no longer counts for much.
The festival, directed by Freddie Opoku-Addaie, has a taste for the outre and cutting edge, but also showcases some of the most vibrant mainstream talent on the international scene. Take, for instance, Via Katlehong, a dance troupe born in a South African township in 1992 as a community project to counter the violence threatening the township’s youth. Today it has 18 professional dancers and a school, and tours internationally. Via Injabulo, the production it brought to Sadler’s Wells — a double bill of street dance with a uniquely South African twist — was Dance Umbrella’s highest-profile event this year.
In the first half, form informs, by the Portuguese choreographer Marco da Silva Ferreira, the audience meets the eight dancers, casually dressed and wearing trainers. The dance begins with one woman who moves as if she is reassembling her body parts bit by bit. By the time everyone else joins in, the aerobic choreography begins to read like a dance class or football practice. The weird recorded music lays alarmist brass over a heavy, steady beat, which motors the precise and exciting rhythmic footwork, a feature of the quick-stepping South African dance known as pantsula. The dancers also compete individually for our attention, giving us a chance to appreciate their diverse personalities.
These come to the fore in the second half, Emaphakathini, by the French-Senegalese choreographer Amala Dianor. This piece is posited as a freewheeling evening in the townships, with a live DJ on stage and coolers scattered about to keep the drinks cold. As well as turning the dancers’ feet into elaborate, exhilarating drum solos, the choreography also — unusually — makes their shoulders dance.
Although there isn’t much theatrical structure to the piece and it disappointingly fizzles out at the end, the dancers’ energy never flags, their fast and furious tap dancing bedazzles and their welcoming stage presence can’t help but win over an audience.
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