OneTouch Theatre, Eden Court, Inverness, 17 February 2012

THREE dance shows at Eden Court within three weeks of each other seems to have been too much for the local audience, judging by the sparse attendance.

THOSE who didn’t turn out missed a treat, an hour of pure dance as astringent and refreshing as a splash of cold well water in a heatwave. Focusing on a tightly limited vocabulary of movements repeated in different patterns by varying combinations of performers, from solos and duets to the full company of eight, Errol White and Davina Givan create something very special.

Errol White Company

It’s a work of abstract dance without ornament or frills, there’s nothing obviously emotional and no apparent narrative, and yet there’s the sense of meaning tightly coded and hidden. Hints occasionally appear – the moment when White removes his grey suit jacket, or, almost at the end when in amongst the curled, prone bodies on the floor Givan in her plain scarlet dress sits up, looks around, and rearranges herself in the same direction as the others.

It’s the choreographic equivalent of Bach or Reich, eschewing the big emotional heart-tugging vibrato strings, making the brain watch for very small differences and creating from them a powerful emotional effect, in which the sound design of Tiago Cerqueira plays no small part. White and Givan’s young dancers, some of them with very little experience, do them credit – a mention is due particularly for the balletic grace of Freya Jeffs. Even so, the moments that stand out in the memory are White’s solo (superb) and his strangely menacing duet with Givan.

The two Creative Scotland interns in the company are a step in the right direction, but talking to White afterwards (who is Artistic Director, with Givan as Creative Director, of National Youth Dance Wales) we bemoan the lack of an equivalent in Scotland of Northern School of Contemporary Dance to take young Scottish dance talent and polish it to an international standard. Until then, it’s down to Scottish companies, large and small, foundation- or, like Errol White Company, project-funded, to fill the gap.

© Jennie Macfie, 2012

Links

• Errol White Company
• Jennie Macfie