McNicol Ballet Collective: Here & Now

Britten Theatre, Royal Academy of Music, London
April 5, 2025

Celebrating its fifth anniversary, McNicol Ballet Collective returned to the London stage with Here & Now, a mixed bill featuring extracts from its existing repertoire alongside a brand-new piece.

The insistent rhythm of Mason Bates’ pounding music and Andrew McNicol’s ever-changing, fast-paced choreography in the returning Bates’ Beats made for an exciting opening. The semi-darkness of Yaron Abulafia’s lighting plot, the vivid blue of Louise Flanagan’s costumes and the smoky atmosphere combined to make the dancers appear to be butterflies flitting around in the urgency of a short-lived summer day.

McNicol uses strong ballet technique to underpin athleticism which on its own can so easily pall, and he’s not afraid to work on different levels, challenging his dancers at every step as they are at one moment executing a lift, at another prone on stage. He’s helped by Flanagan’s costumes, the women’s tutus having plates that jut out jauntily, adding bounce to every step.

Moonbend is not entirely dissimilar to Bates’ Beats in that it is somewhat relentless of pace, but here McNicol employs canons and repetitive movements to great effect to showcase the precision of the ensemble. The music, by Perfect Genius, thumped along a little too loudly, but choreographically McNicol has the sense to employ some stillness which retains the interest and lends a flicker of humour. The costumes are not exactly flattering though, especially the shiny shorts. Again, the lighting was low which leant a disembodied feeling as here and there, a torso or limb caught the light.

The pas de deux from Of Silence, danced by Winnie Dias and James Stephen, is accompanied by the VOCES8 ensemble singing a setting of a prayer. The heavy amplification emphasised every breath, much sibilance and the slightest weaknesses in intonation. Even so, the singers literally upstaged the dancers, McNicol’s choreography, as pleasing as it is, insufficiently remarkable to pull the attention away.

The second half was preceded by a brief, somewhat hagiographic, film. Whilst understanding its importance in maintaining funding and thus the continuity of the company, it might have been more enlightening to have seen the nuts and bolts of the rehearsal process.

The final work of Here & Now, the new Liquid Life, initially seems little different from the previous ensemble offerings. The dancers’ baggy red trousers and loose maroon tops give them the air of Buddhist monks, a feeling enhanced by the contemplative nature of the slower sections.

McNicol selects dancers that work as a true ensemble and thus are able to convey more than many who dance ubiquitous abstract works. In his choreography, it is possible to see connections, some fleeting, some longer lasting. In some ways, Liquid Life echoes Balanchine’s Serenade, not least when a lone female dancer sits on her own, head in hands.

Again, McNicol understands the importance of and how to use stillness, and has the courage to add duration. Dancers make eye contact time and again, the fluidity and precision of their movement demonstrating careful and thorough rehearsal and the establishment of relationships that save the work from feeling too detached.

Yaron Abulafia creates an innovative lighting trick in the second half of the work, presenting a sloping plane of light that suggests solidity, only belied by the dancers appearing to dance through it. The clouds of smoke rolled down the light hypnotically, perhaps in this small section, justifying their use.

Once again, the music felt uncomfortably. There seems no point in having an onstage string quartet if the sound is going to be boosted to such an extent as to obliterate the nuances of the live strings.

McNicol Ballet Collective is an exciting company that deserves all the encouragement possible to sustain itself in such difficult times. Here & Now is a very enjoyable programme but next time, more light, less smoke and a lot less volume please.