Review: DANCE UMBRELLA - SUNDAY SHORTS, Barbican Cinema

Dance Umbrella - the contemporary dance festival - started in 1978 and continues its mission today. One can always expect the unexpected…however, Sunday Shorts - “a screening of short films that draw on global perspectives and have movement at their heart” was far from what I'd hoped it would be.

The showing included six films, and personally only one constituted a dance film. I'll save the best for last. Elsewhere we experienced a wide range of creativity that all veered towards the surrealist side of things - but very little of the material could be described as dance.

Movement is the word that people prefer to use, and yes, dance is fundamentally movement. But only the one film had humans moving with intention i.e. dancing, so one can't but help asking bigger questions about curation, decision-making and underlying strategy.

The more abstract works included analysis of “the self and the cosmos”, “surreal, celebratory ritual”, “light, emotion, illusion”, “shifting landscape and inner transformation” and “cross-dressing in various traditional Asian operas”.

As you can imagine it was quite the all-sorts, but I'm afraid to say the majority of the material was confusing, avant-garde verging on random and not largely memorable.

The opening work; bulabulay mun? was by the Tjimur Dance Theatre - a promising start - and looked at “wounds of war and colonial history”. Though the piece wasn't literal per se, the individual components created a work that included nature, history, identity and movement.

From mountain tops to forest rivers, the film travelled in both geographic and emotional journeys. Beach scenes saw a small group of dancers execute generous arcs of movement and use a large stick as a platform for partnering or an obstacle to climb. In the forest we found people in indigenous dress doing movement that felt ritualistic - calm gesture supported by quiet bobbing. 

Throughout one felt subtle power and the focus on movement - subsequently one was engaging with dance. I believe the work was originally created for the stage, so one assumes we're also experiencing dance made for film. In the sense that; the piece already existed, so those in charge took what they had and structured/placed it, in the best possible way to be consumed on the screen. And it worked.

When dance is created for film, the frame actually enhances its content, rather than acting as a form of constraint. I only wish this collection of “dance” films had included more of the above. And I don't think I'm alone.

Dance Umbrella: Sunday Shorts screened at the Barbican on  12 October

Dance Umbrella continues until 31 October