Dance in the open air is something you come across on holiday abroad. British weather has traditionally put a dampener on it. It doesn’t seem so much fun in the rain. The recent heatwave gave Dancing City at Canary Wharf, a mini jamboree of movement within the Greenwich+Docklands international festival, a chance to thrive, and crowds duly gathered. Events included the French group Le grand jeté acrobatically moving around a giant Newton’s cradle in Valse à Newton, huge yellow balls swinging towards them as they flexed and bent, and Vivace, which featured a duo, also French, moving in hypnotic harmony to a variety of dance tracks.
There was a mixture of kathak and contemporary in You & Me, the slightly confusing story of a thwarted relationship from Amina Khayyam Dance, and Bouncing Narratives, an immersive performance in a shipping container from the Oslo-based Iranian choreographer Roza Moshtaghi, in which two dancers jumped on a trampoline over the audience’s heads.
