Article by:
Jane Hobson
Choreographer Aletta Collins opens her new work, The days run away like wild horses, with an inspired recreation of an Oscar-winning 80s animation called Tango, by director Zbigniew Rybczynski.
Trivial snapshots of everyday life – a boy rescuing a lost football, a woman putting a baby to bed, a couple pushing against a wall – are looped on repeat to make an intricate tapestry of the mundane that adds up to something much bigger. Collins goes on to expand the idea into something more abstract, and a suggestion that all of these players might be one person; all these actions those that go to make up a life.
The opening scene is the most striking part, but there are nice individual moments too, like a pliant-bodied solo for Jacob O'Connell, a winner in last year's BBC Young Dancer competition, who impresses with nuance and control.
Didy Veldman's The 3 Dancers is another piece with a striking beginning, two trios in mutating permutations, loosely inspired by the eponymous Picasso painting. Although, as is sometimes the way with Rambert, while classy and well-danced, it's not wildly exciting.
To finish, a revival of a company classic, Christopher Bruce's Ghost Dances from 1981, his response to the systematic 'disappearances' that took place under Pinochet's regime in Chile in the 1970s. Three dreadlocked 'ghosts' enter the scene as death infiltrates the lives of ordinary people.
Bruce's choreography is incredibly exacting. It doesn't ask for the most extreme positions, but for absolute precision, definition and line, sometimes at high speed. It's harder than it looks, but the company handle it well, especially Luke Ahmet and Miguel Altunaga. The piece has a melancholy air, soundtracked by panpipes and folk rhythms, but for all the horror of the subject matter, it keeps an emotional distance.
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