Brief innovations

Compagnie Beau Geste
Parsons Green

Toilet Tango
Bathstore, Baker Street

Stephen Petronio Dance Company
Queen Elizabeth Hall

Australian Ballet
Sadler’s Wells Theatre

Manon
Royal Opera House

The dancing digger and its partner, the exceptional Philippe Priasso, are back in town. Aptly regarded as a highlight of last year’s Dance Umbrella, Compagnie Beau Geste’s Transports Exceptionnels by the choreographer Dominique Boivin has made a triumphal comeback to the joy of all those who had previously missed it and the happiness of those who wanted to see it again. For this is indeed the kind of performance you want to see more than once, as behind the apparent simplicity of the central idea — a man dancing a duet with a machine — lies an intricate web of narratives that never cease to surprise. A few minutes into it, the quirkiness of the proposed situation fades away, making you believe that the digger has a soul and a heart.

Quirkiness and multiple narratives are also the ingredients of the other, highly engaging free event in this year’s Dance Umbrella programme: Toilet Tango, a duet by Rodrigo Pardo and Cristina Cortés, performed in the window of Bathstore in Baker Street. Within the fictional setting of a small, neatly assembled bathroom, a handsome young man gets ready for what is supposedly a nice night out. While getting ready, he performs all those actions one normally performs when safely enclosed in the intimacy of the most intimate room. He sings, whistles and rehearses the steps he will perform later on in a different environment. As if materialising out of his desires, a sequinned lady appears, and the two launch themselves into a brief, but steamy tango, stepping in and out of the tub, lunging over the sink and the toilet seat, kicking the toilet roll, skipping on the tiles and cavorting on the walls of their confined showcase, with unique ability and technical bravura. After an ingeniously unpredictable finale, the two disappear one after the other, and their theatrical space goes back to its original function. Short, dynamic, fizzy, saucy and thought-provoking: this is theatre at its best.

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