The astonishingly rich programme of the first Dance Reflections festival, spread across three major London venues, is an opportunity not only to see a range of what you might call non-classical dance, but to catch cross-currents between artists, styles and times. Its opening night paired a brand new creation with an iconic work from 1979.
Contemporary dancer Brigel Gjoka and “abstract b-boy” Rauf “RubberLegz” Yasit first met as performers in William Forsythe’s superlative Quiet Evening of Dance, and their duet Neighbours echoes its trajectory: a stark opening section, dense with motion but performed in plain clothes and unadorned by music, gives way to more theatrically lit, dressed and accompanied dances, flush with moods and meanings. It’s like seeing the work’s bones first, and only then its flesh.
