There’s something about seeing people on stage who don’t look like dancers; just boys, lads, with unkempt hair, baggy clothes and last night’s hangover, bonding over a gaming console. It’s rare in dance to find a setup that looks real, but Yorkshire-based Northern Rascals deal in slices of reality and everyday truths.
Shed is the latest piece from the young dance-theatre company, performed mostly inside a set that looks like someone’s flat, boxed in by walls and windows, the dancers’ restless, rubbery bodies buffeted around its small confines. It neatly places the characters in the world rather than the theatre, and allows the audience to peer into their lives. The set also serves as a screen for projections, often of the show’s poetic text (by company co-director Anna Holmes) spoken in voiceover, which makes the narratives immediately legible in a way that allows viewers to linger on the details.
