Add us to your networks:

Love street dance?

Then visit our new look site!

Please click the ‘like’ button to add us on Facebook

We’ll keep you up to date with the latest news and features

Review: Sadler’s Wells Sampled 2010

With year's line up impressing us (Review: Sampled 2009), high standards had been set since 2009...

Words: David Barros

Sadler's Wells' Sampled is the annual opportunity for audiences to enjoy a preview of what it has on offer over the next year. At the reasonable price of £5, or £10 for a seated ticket, non-dance fans can commit to watching extracts from shows at the average price of £2 per act.

Sampled Sampled

Before, during the interval, and after the show was the opportunity to sample what Sadler's has to offer on the mezzanine and upper circles.

Artist Mr Dane had created a mural on the wall of the 2nd Circle level, providing markers for others to contribute their own design, while the mezzanine included a camera projection installation on the wall known as Canon, providing entertainment for those looking for where the camera was, and at the very top of Sadler’s was a dance mat game.

Dance workshops also took place throughout the day allowing people to meet the dance companies and learn basic techniques

Sampled - Main Show

The jewel in Sampled's crown for the evening was the Sadler's Well Dance Contest winner, choreographer Shu-Yi Chou from Thailand, who won an all-expenses paid trip for him and his group to perform for Sampled’s two nights.

Some acts performing on the night were work in progress. To allow for quick set changes few props or backdrops were used, so a bare stage was the case for most performances.

Opening the evening was Jasmin Vardimon Company, a painfully slow opening number. An extract of work ‘in the making,’ it didn’t promise a lot for audiences to come back and watch, even with that in mind, especially as a “sample” of dance for new audiences.

Contemporary dance lacking any hook to capture attention and a confusing climax involving bin bags falling from the scene were bore inspiring rather than thought provoking.

The extended leg raises of the second part were impressive once or twice, but a whole act based on a dancer raising and dropping her leg and making a whipping sound made me question why Sadler's commissioned the piece for Sampled, let alone being the opening act.

Birmingham Royal Ballet picked up the lull in attention for those who came to seek out classical dance performance. Their flawless pas de deux from Sleeping Beauty was light, genteel, and importantly the chemistry between the dancers was evident, set to Tchaikovsky’s classical score.

Performing en pointe the ballerina's pirouettes were strong, while the premier dancuer executed his lifts with apparent ease, choreographed by Peter Wright after Marius Pepita.

Shu-Yi Chou’s

Shu-Yi Chou and cast: What were they laughing at?

Shu-Yi Chou’s piece was curious and may have suffered in getting its message across due to cultural differences between the dancers and the audience. Difficult to read and slow to start off, there was nothing wrong with the execution of the contemporary, just a narrative or message that was difficult to grasp.

With a floor covered in shredded green paper (foliage?) and a swivel fan providing an artificial breeze, it began promising as the ensemble stood in a group. Then they laughed and fell to the floor. Over and over again. Then again. Then as the audience laughed with them (whether in amusement or confusion?), they did it again.

Paying attention to the details, they were falling in canon, but what were they laughing at? This reviewer was as confused as the next person.

The next phrases were equally confusing, with the dancers taking it in turns to scream in the lead dancer's face. At one point a dancer entered the stage wearing a motorbike helmet!

Gradually picking up to the music and pace of Ravel and Bolero, the dancers fall into routine, even breaking into a few solos, and dash around the front row of the audience, but before long it’s over, leaving you with a good feeling, but wondering what such a long introduction was for.

Phase T debuted their new set Trop Tard (Too Late) to a rapturous applause. From an interview conducted with the crew two days before their debut, I was told the piece is about TV controlling our minds.

Without any set or backdrop it was difficult to tell this, but their set is shaping up to be an impressive piece once completed for Breakin' Convention, with smooth transitions and seamless power moves to make it an entertaining and all-round good set.

A second appearance of the Birmingham Royal Ballet presented another extract, this time the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet, as choreographed by Kenneth MacMillan. With a few more lifts than their last performance, the performance was closer to reflect the romantic scene, and equally as graceful.

Havana Rakatan at Sadler's Wells Sampled Closing act Havana Rakatan was a pleasant number to end the show featuring a live Cuban band to accompany the dancing. Dressed in party gear, the energy of the dancing and the live band filled the room.

As well as Latin dancing, the second piece was a contemporary fusion, while the third was a social dance scene with dancers in duets an dressed to the nines in suits and cocktail dresses.

Their closing number featured one vocalist (from the dancers, not the live band) singing while the cast performed as backing dancers before curtain close.

Sampled didn’t quite manage to live up to the same excitement as it did last year, but still gives a good idea for those new to dance of what to expect - and what to avoid. A better choice of entry-level crowd pleasers should have been picked to represent their catalogue. Aside from a slow start, and confusing contemporary numbers, the energy of the second half is what made an inexpensive night out feel like a quality night out.

Sampled 2010 acts:

Jasmin Vardimon Company

Birmingham Royal Ballet

Phase T

Havana Rakatan

Shu-Yi Chou