This show may not spice up your life but it is certainly a bold attempt by Sadler’s Wells to spice up dance and judging by the rapturous reception from an enthusiastic audience it just might be successful.
Take two undoubted talents in the world of contemporary dance, Julie Cunningham and Harry Alexander (both of whom have National Dance Award success in their locker) and add a member of the most popular female pop group of all time and the tickets should sell themselves. After all, Melanie Chisholm (ubiquitously known as Mel - now Melanie - C) has sold more than 123 million records (23 million of which have been on her own account).
Nicknamed Sporty Spice during her pop heyday, Melanie C was, perhaps counter-intuitively, always the serious one. Her chiseled, muscular definition attests to the reasoning behind the 'sporty' moniker but I have always felt she ought to have been re-nicknamed Arty Spice due to her eclectic post-Spice Girls career. She was also the one with the most expressive voice and her solo, If That Were Me was one of my favourite songs for years (and, being about homelessness, attested to her obvious social conscience and humanity).
Melanie C's performing career started at Bird College, training in dance and musical theatre, but excepting a few 'zig-a-zig-ahs' as a pop star she hasn’t really danced for 30 years. Despite a reconstructed knee, which she readily admits doesn’t always behave, at 49, Melanie C looks in peak condition, and actually not much different from the Sporty Spice of 25 years ago. She was certainly not a passenger in this hour-long performance, melding seamlessly with Cunningham and Alexander. Chisholm possesses a naturalness of physical articulation and expressiveness that belied the fact that she was performing in a medium that was hitherto alien to her. In the post-show talk she confessed to having the worst stage fright of her career prior to the performance and an occasional degree of nervousness was magnified by the audience’s close proximity.
The staging was perfect in the square, as opposed to in the round, with an audience on all four sides (three of the banks of seating being on the Sadler’s Wells stage). This gave a unique performance perspective as every audience member was looking through the performance at the audience, adding to the work’s intimacy. The rectangular performance space was such a pool of black reflective floor that it seemed as if we could dive into it and periodically, the excellent lighting designs of Zeynep Kepekli offered an indication of the universe around the auditorium contrasting with the exposed intimacy of the performance.
Wibke Tiarks’ electronic score was punctuated by an eclectic soundtrack of recorded songs, including the popular Dido’s Lament from Purcell’s Dido & Aeneas (apparently new catnip for choreographers), which covered a languorous solo by Cunningham.
The trio shared a chemistry of mutual affection that was palpable, exchanging meaningful looks and smiles throughout the work. The intimate feel was further enhanced by Melanie C and Alexander enjoying a last-dance-at-the-wedding style smooch. There were some sublime moments not least in the complexity of simple co-ordinated movements that opened the work against the aural backdrop of Nina Simone’s haunting Stars (recorded live at Montreux, in 1976). These powerful lyrics apparently gave a clue to the intentions behind this otherwise abstract work although this did not resonate with me at the time. Alexander was given free reign to stretch his long limbs to their maximum in a brief solo that was enhanced by Kepekli’s mottled lighting effects and there was an intimate duet between Cunningham and Melanie C in which they created a multiplicity of structural poses and shapes.
However, these nuggets were interspersed with duller sequences that could not be lifted by the spectacular and inclusive staging. There was plenty of co-ordinated walking and strutting, a lot of lying around (Melanie C spent three periods of apparent dozing, during one of which she 'awoke' to briefly sing a wordless a capella duet with Cunningham, apparently inspired by Meredith Monk’s Spider Web Anthem) and a strange section where Cunningham (and then Alexander) unaccountably messed around with an unplugged electric guitar. These several sections dampened my enthusiasm for what was, in essence, a beautiful and intimate performance. It seemed like a work in progress that could be improved by a judicious edit.
