Dance Review: Black Album

Richard Lutz witnesses an electrifying dance performance.

Avant Garde Dance
Patrick Centre
Birmingham
Until Friday 26th Sept

This is a triple bill of hip-hop dance that doesn’t limit itself to urban music. It uses tunes as far flung as Beethoven, Linkin Park and Jazzanova and seems to say: ‘Yes, hip hop may be our core. But it can lend itself to anything that you hear on the airwaves, whether it’s Radio 3 or XFM.

The performance opens with Omega using five dancers and five rectangles of light. It is angular, sharp, abstract and breaks easily into jazz and ballet when needed.

Classical Break is just that: music as varied as Beethoven, Mendelsshon and Orff. They are short, some touched with humour. Imagine someone on Broad Street using hip hop to Mozart and you get the idea.

Dark Matter is a longer segment showing off muscle, precision and speed. It all makes for a new turn on contemporary movement that is happy to turn its back on convention and show us that music and dance can combine in ways you would not imagine. It’s on tonight before speeding off to Gloucester’s Olympus Theatre and then… India

Tix: dancexchange.org.uk