Cultural Dessert

Last Friday we were at the Trestle Arts Base in St Albans to see ‘Roam’ – a new piece by the Tom Dale Company. Choreographed by Tom Dale with specially commissioned tracks from maverick producer/composer Shackleton and drum&bass outfit Sion (“a captivating journey into a world of swinging sub bass and complex percussion”) and incorporating the work of poet Rick Holland, ‘Roam’ was a serious, impressive performance. The five young dancers demonstrated truly amazing athleticism. Not being fluent in the language of modern dance, I don’t really have the vocabulary to do the piece justice but it was clearly of a very high standard. As a musician, I found those sections that were more obviously rhythmic and related directly to the music easier to appreciate though I was impressed that even the slower, more abstract movements contained tiny muscular twitches that acknowledged the music’s beats. I’m not sure I fully grasped all the references to the desire to roam, which (according to the programme) explored the relationship between “intellectual roaming and more animalistic roaming for food and shelter”. But it was great to see something so different, thought-provoking and cool. You can see an extract at: http://vimeo.com/6879374