2Faced Dance Company is an all male five strong urban dance troupe based in Hereford. Artistic director Tamsin Fitzgerald founded the company in 1999 but of the current tranche of dancers most joined in 2012/13. The newest member, Jack Humphrey, joined last July.
I have to admit, I felt quite uncomfortable as 2Faced performed ‘Milk Night’, their first piece of the evening. However, I’m pretty sure I was supposed to feel that way. Fittingly for an all-male company, visiting choreographer Eddie Kay had chosen to portray a world without women. It’s a scary place – believe me!
Onstage, three tents rest in the darkness as we hear the wind howling and a distant guitar. A lone dancer enters with a flashlight, eating a bowl of cereal. He shouts into the distance as though searching for something he has lost. After a time, he begins to move, awkwardly as if in spasm. He continues until the other dancers join him and one holds him tightly to calm him down.
One particularly interesting sequence in this piece is based heavily on trust. Jack Humphrey is at the centre of it. With eyes fixed on a point somewhere far in the distance, he hurls himself forwards, sideways, backwards. Each time, just before he falls, his friends fill the space he would have landed to catch and redirect him. There are some close calls, but no disasters and again, that uneasy feeling is surely intentional.
Jack was the only dancer to hail from down south, his training completed with Laban and The Place in London. The others all trained with Northern Contemporary Dance School and so already knew each other when Jack joined the company. In the after show talk I learned that this segment began as a ‘test’ for Jack to help him settle in and connect with the rest of the company more quickly.
Following the interval, the boys performed Lucid Grounds, choreographed by their own artistic director. This piece was rooted in the different ways different people remember things. Four giant strips of foil hung from the back of the stage and gave the impression of mirrors – like the ones you see at the fair. Dancing in front of them reflected a distorted image back. Full of strong, fast movements, jumps and lifts, it was a really high-energy performance.
The costumes – black trousers and black shirt for all with fawn-coloured jackets tailored differently for each dancer – reminded me a little of the attire you might find on a boy band; perhaps a misguided attempt to show that each of these lads was an individual with his own personality. But the flare of the costumes weren’t needed to grasp that; it was evident from the start. What great role models they are for any young dancers, particularly boys, and what an interesting and enjoyable evening.
2Faced Dance Company performed at Lakeside Arts Theatre on Tuesday 3 February 2015.
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