The Alleyne twins, Sadé and Kristina, are two of British dance’s most compelling movers. They started out as sprinters, tried out dance on a whim and ended up performing at the Olympic opening ceremony with Akram Khan. Their movement draws on global influences from Indian kathak and hip-hop to west African and Caribbean dance, to make something distinctive.
The sisters have a visible connection when they move together, but in Far From Home they expand the company with a further cast of four, alongside a bigger community made up of local dancers old and young, in one of the best examples I’ve seen of incorporating non-professional dancers on stage. The piece tackles migration and the plight of refugees, not in narrative scenes so much as in fleeting impressions of fear and fleeing; us and them; efforts to communicate; anxiety and weariness; hope and support. Subtle imagery reveals itself– sometimes so subtle you wonder if you imagined it, though the sound of waves on the soundtrack immediately brings into focus bodies being buffeted in the water and sprawled on a beach.
Great work has been done on sets and lighting by Emanuele Salamanca and Salvatore Scollo. The stage is a warm glow, the simple backdrops designed so they can look like worn plaster, rust, pock-marked stone or a burnt out landscape, with only a switch of the lights. The score, by Giuliano Modarelli and Nicki Wells, roams across continents in the same way the subjects and choreography do.
The strongest dance phrases are kathak-inflected, rhythmically composed, sounding out beats through the dancers’ bodies and underpinned by spiralling shapes. The dancers are best when in the throes of motion, the Alleynes are both so instantly reactive; an arm, foot or body will suddenly evacuate a space and appear somewhere entirely new. A viewer can easily be borne along on the tide of movement and music but it wouldn’t hurt to push the contrast and break the mood occasionally, to tighten the drama and land some more impactful moments. There’s a real gem inside here.
• At Dance City, Newcastle, on 28 April, and Messums Wiltshire, 14-15 July
