Lisa Densem's work on Footnote Dance is an exploration - of movement, of identity, of the concept of universal consciousness, perhaps - rather more than a "performance." The audience sits like a posse of voyeurs as the six dancers set about deconstructing their art and themselves.
Densem is, after all, now settled in Berlin, steeped in Europe's uncompromising intellectualism and Footnote spent time with her there in the early development of this project, in the Footnote Forte series.
It begins so slowly, before the theatre lights dim, that later arrivals chat intrusively before they realise dancers are arriving onstage. Which they do individually, to stand, lean, sit, slouch and to stare back into the auditorium curiously uncurious.
Andrew Thomas' sound score vibrates softly but insistently, more subterranean rumble with intermittent silences, than rhythmic cats' purr. It nevertheless seems to drive the action, which unfolds, though uncreases would be a better word. Elbows crick at odd angles, torsos sit askew of inelegant lunges, hips torque, wrists and fingers jerk, string puppet like.
Alice Macann, in particular, produces the movements of an intense but untutored, dancing child. A rubbery Emily Adams contorts in one long solo section, taking the possible range of hip movement to new boundaries.
