Photographer: Foteini Christofilopoulou
At the front of a dark and empty stage, a lone DJ sits at a mixing desk with his back to the audience. Slowly and carefully, he inserts a CD into the player.
‘Tonight’ from West Side Story blasts out through the darkness. While enjoying the song (if it’s your kind of thing), you might wonder where the dancers are. But listen to the lyrics:
I saw you and the world went away
What you are, what you do, what you say
This is just the beginning of an evening where the audience is invited to consider their place as part of the performance. Choreographed in 2001 by Jérôme Bel, an artist renowned for making work that challenges the audience as much as the dancers, The Show… has since been performed by dancers from companies worldwide.
However, this restaging for Candoco, a company of disabled and non-disabled professional dancers, must surely be one of the most affecting performances of the work to date.
There’s a lot of humour in the work, but also a lot of poignancy. There’s a great sense of community too, both between the dancers themselves and through the dancers’ connection with the audience, since each time the work is restaged performers local to the tour venues are recruited to expand Candoco’s seven-strong core. Allan Binns, owner of Nottingham’s Bohunk Institute spoke about this experience with our writer Lucy Manning just recently.
Not until song number three – ‘Come Together’ – do the dancers appear, quite literally ‘coming together’ all of a sudden, as though obeying a set of instructions.
What follows is a succession of highly recognisable songs mostly from the eighties and nineties. Each one is individually selected by the DJ who ejects the last CD before carefully opening and inserting the next. Some are dance floor fillers, others big ballads. All make it almost impossible for many members of the audience to resist bouncing, swaying or humming along to themselves.
With every new song comes a new set of choreography seemingly so dictated by the lyrics that, before any words are sung, the dancers stand waiting, listening for their next move. Some songs see half the company leave the stage; one particularly funny moment sees the DJ give himself a fantastically indulgent solo to Tina Turner’s ‘Private Dancer’.
Sometimes the audience is actively invited to take part, such as during John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’. As the dancers depart and darkness falls onstage once more, the Playhouse audience sings, not just to themselves, but to the whole auditorium. It feels quite magical.
Founded in 1991, Candoco has gone from strength to strength thanks in part to its co-founder and artistic director Celeste Dandeker’s determination for it to be seen as professional, credible and mainstream. From the very beginning, she commissioned works for the company from internationally renowned choreographers, which has kept it in the spotlight ever since.
The great thing about Candoco is that the dancers are real, they're not in the least bit pretentious, and they represent the whole of society. The company breaks down barriers for audiences by removing the misconception that watching dance is only a pastime of the moneyed elite, as well as making performance possible for people of all ages and abilities.
With such a great set of songs and a company with so much heart, you can’t help but come out with a smile on your face.
Candoco performed at Nottingham Playhouse on Friday 17 April 2015.
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