South Bank Centre, London – 8-9 November 2024
Reviewed by Claire Roderick
4****
Australian dance company Chunky Move bring their acclaimed 4/4 to Europe on a six-city tour. Described as “Chunky Move’s blueprint for choreographic precision, physical endurance, minimalist design and rugged street aesthetics,” this is a memorable and fascinating dance performance.
Antony Hamilton has created a mesmerising fusion of krumping, freestyle hip-hop and contemporary. Choreographed with the performers (Mason Kelly, Melissa Pham, David Prakash, Harrison Ritchie-Jones, Aimee Schollum, Michaela Tancheff, Nikki Tarling and Jayden Wall) the production is both mechanical and organic.
The 8 dancers initially perform in groups of 4 on low platforms, creating repetitive and mechanical imagery with astonishing precision and synchronicity. As the performance develops, more platforms are introduced and wheeled around the stage as dancers perform in pairs or larger groups – always with a precision and sharpness that doesn’t flag over the 60 minutes. The choreography accounts for the needs of even these superhuman performers, with movement and pace gradually slowing and becoming more trancelike as the platforms are slowly spun around the stage and tableaus are formed. The jaw dropping stamina and skill of the performers as they create the almost hypnotic continuous movement on stage is complimented by Bosco Shaw’s wonderfully stark lighting design. Paula Levis’s sleek urban costumes add to bleak otherworldly atmosphere and Alisdair Macindoe’s trickily layered sound design shifts between pulsing upbeat energy and a percussion class for 5-year-olds in a wonderfully effective way that means the audience is never quite at ease, demanding stamina from the audience as well as the performers.
Chunky Move: 4/4 2024 International Tour continues: Les Halles de Schaerbeek, Brussels 15–16 November 2024 Dansens Hus, Oslo 22–24 November 2024 PLT Theater – Heerlen RABOzaal 3 December 2024 Teatro Municipal do Porto, Porto 6–7 December 2024 Grand Théâtre de la Ville de Luxembourg, Luxembourg 10–11 December 2024