The Place, London
March 24, 2023
On the And, is an apt title. The intake of breath that precipitates the rush of energy and action brings memories flooding back. The programme at The Place, honours the legacy of Sir Robert Cohan and combines performance of his works choreographed between 1975 to 2019, snippets of film and his own engaging chat. He opens remembering his introduction to Graham technique, how the sensation grabbed him and how he instantly recognised his life’s path.
Photo Anthony Crickmay
It was London’s good fortune that philanthropist Robin Howard persuaded him to come to the capital in 1967 to form a company and the necessary school to train the dancers. The ‘70s were heady days as contemporary dance, a term coined by Cohan, flourished.
The programme opened on Stabat Mater (1975) one of Cohan’s most memorable works and students from the Royal Swedish Ballet School in Stockholm did it proud. The distended arms and clenched hands, the sudden total collapse on the floor all bear silent witness to the suffering of the women at the Cross. The young dancers showed emotional intelligence beyond their years in a moving performance.
Photo Tilo Stengel
Forest (1977), another early work was shown in archival film footage featuring performances from vintage London Contemporary Dance Theatre dancers, Namron, Linda Gibbs, Sallie Estep, Anca Frankenhaeuser, Anita Griffin and Kate Harrison.
More recent solos, Sigh (2014) to Edward Elgar’s Sospiri and Communion (2019) were evidence of Cohan’s unerring choreographic ability. They were given sterling performances by Liam Riddick in the first and Dane Hurst on film in the second. It was a rare treat to see two of our top male contemporary dancers perform these works, with every fibre of their bodies dancing in airborne leaps and melting rolls, exemplars of the technique and the style.
Photo Pari Naderi
Lingua Franca (2014) to Bach’s Chaconne in D Minor, from Yorke Dance Project, featured Jonathan Goddard, another of the award-winning dancer in the company of Abigail Attard-Montalto, Edd Mitton, and Amy Louise Thake. The work is about people dancing, making conversation in sometimes simple exchanges and occasionally more complex structures, coming to a close as the quartet finally link arms.
To conclude a stage full of student dancers from Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance demonstrated the power and energy of the Graham technique in Class (1975). It closed an evening of nostalgia but mainly of joy; a living tribute to the man who transformed London’s dance scene.