Quartermark - Richard Alston review: Footwork and poses that celebrate the sheer joy of movement

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Emma Byrne4 March 2019

It’s been a bittersweet 12 months for Richard Alston, one of the founding fathers of the British contemporary dance scene. No sooner had he celebrated his 50th year as a choreographer than it was announced that his (still very successful) company would close in 2020 after 25 years.

Dance lovers were bemused; Alston later revealed funding decisions by the Arts Council were to blame. Fast forward to last month and there he was outside Buckingham Palace to pick up a long overdue knighthood. The irony was not lost on fans.

The end may be nigh, but Alston is still creating new work, the latest of which received its London premiere on Friday at Sadler’s Wells (the troupe will return there as part of a farewell tour next year). Brahms Hungarian, a selection of plotless vignettes set to the composer’s infectious folk melodies, carries many of Alston’s hallmarks: his extreme musicality, his playfulness (in the pistol-sharp claps and studied bows shared between dancers, notably Elly Braund and Nicholas Shikkis), the architectural poses and quick allegro footwork.

There are also nods to the score’s gypsy roots — bursts of movement that come to an abrupt, breathless halt — though the piece’s vocabulary is recognisably balletic.

The rest of the evening continues in much the same vein. There are no gimmicks in Alston’s abstract works, none of the flashy sets beloved by so many contemporary choreographers — just a steadfast belief in dance for dance’s sake. So while you can track his evolution in Quartermark, a taster menu of four short pieces from the past two decades, and in Proverb, with its Sixties-style shift dresses, one thread unites them all: the sheer joy of movement.

What is the Arts Council thinking?

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