Swaggerific display of pumping chests and crotch-grabbing struts: NYDC’s Speak Volumes reviewed

Last week I attended a dance performance in person for the first time since March last year. If you’d asked me to choose the ideal show for the occasion, I’d have probably picked something with marquee names and lavish costumes — a classical ballet gala, or maybe one of Matthew Bourne’s glittering productions. As it happens, I watched teenagers in bomber jackets snarl at each other in between dance-offs — and actually, it was just the ticket. Mental health issues among teens have rocketed during the pandemic, and this crew, from National Youth Dance Company, drive the point home with a hard-nosed production that doesn’t ask so much as command us to acknowledge their angst. It’s fiery, dynamic and deeply felt. I’m only a little embarrassed to admit that I leaked a few tears over their passion.

Every year NYDC recruits a fresh group of adolescent dancers and pairs them with a Sadler’s Wells associate artist who oversees their professional debut. For 2021 it’s Alesandra Seutin at the helm, a Brussels-based choreographer known for combining voice and movement on stage. In Speak Volumes, song, dance, rap and spoken word mingle against an electro backbeat, the ensemble toggling between them with a brisk, nervy energy, no time to waste. There are a few theatrical sketches too — including a game of Simon Says that lays bare the tyranny of school, where everything from opinions to bathroom breaks are policed — but the horsepower is in the dancing, a swaggerific display of pumping chests and crotch-grabbing struts. Sometimes this hard stance reads like a shield against vulnerability, like in the hip-swaying second movement; mostly, though, it’s temper rendered physical, flashes of frustration, elation and desire sparking from fingertips. Seutin’s choreography is alive with steely maturity, but she also leaves room for the inanities of youth.