Springback Academy 2018
Review
Counterbody
Tangaj Dance Collective
An open white space, eight dancers wearing crisp, creaseless T-shirts in muted greens, grey and white: there’s a tasteful visual uniformity that’s easy on the eye.
Billed as a dance installation inspired by “philosophical and physical formulas, from quantum theories to post- structuralism” Counterbody comes off rather like an Ikea showroom: full of the promise of structure and cleanliness that we’d love to buy into, but somehow, deep down, we know it’s devoid of depth or truth. This said the diversity of movement: disjointed isolations, fluid, full-body ripples, smatterings of hip-hop and spot-on springs into each other’s arms certainly proves the conviction and sincerity with which the dancers strive to embody the pseudo-scientific concepts. It’s the smattering of vaguely associated words and crackly blipping soundtrack that raise the suspicion that this is either an earnest school study, or bogus blathering.
Oonagh Duckworth
@OonaghDuck
A clinical space with an electronic feel to it: tube-lighting, video and distorted soundscape. Eight dancers, standing scattered across the white square, slightly bent over, ripple their arms slowly to the sides. As if a pulse comes from their core. Whereas the impulse seems to be equal for all, the effect in each body differs. Like stones dropped simultaneously in water. A shadowy text about transition to another body is being played with sentences like ‘randomness as a sign of security’ and ‘inclination is the new order’. My head spins trying to grasp the intention of all the signs on stage: dancers, text, drone, double video with vague images and white noise. When the voices start to interfere, I give up listening. I see twitching, propelling, tumbling and crouching. Energetic like b-boys, capoeira steps and abstract postures pairing with bips and bleeps. So many skills, but I feel nothing. A glitch in time detached me from these bodies.