The QDance Company from Lagos, Nigeria, begin an extensive UK tour clustered together like robots, moving in jerky synchronicity and fluorescent bright trousers, while a slide on the back wall of the stage warns of the dangers of shedding our differences or pretending they don’t exist.
QDance certainly are different. Formed in 2014 by their choreographer and artistic director Qudus Onikeku, who trained in contemporary dance in Paris, they spent six years developing young dancers and exploring movement styles before beginning to present work. That richness shows in a textured piece full of striking images and deep thought.
Re:Incarnation sometimes becomes opaque and slightly formless, but, driven by a magnificent soundtrack by Olatunde Obajeun and two superb onstage musicians, it’s ambitious, engrossing and fresh. The street sounds of Lagos accompany the first section, Birth, which feels like a bustling market scene as the dancers slip and slide across the space in ever changing groups, cheering and chatting, feet flat, heels propelling the movement, arms whipping the air. The style is an invigorating mixture of hip-hop and Nigerian, the music a heady melange.
The next section, Death, is both darker and more broken down into solos and trios, with some dancers bare-chested and covered in dust, and others in a rough-hewn mixture of street clothes and long fringes, circling with heavy staves. They are probably ancestors, and these are perhaps rites of passage, but it’s hard to read.
Rebirth, the final part, is more surprising and compelling. As one dancer recites a litany of belief – “To catch a fish, you need a bit of luck and a good bait”; “Rainwater is God’s water” – the dancers cover themselves in what looks like oil and then, in a sinuous, shifting shape, glide around together, encouraging feats of virtuosity. It’s like a contemporary ceremony, ongoing and circular, a link to the past that draws in the present. Interesting.
What QDance lack at present is the communicative precision of Kate Prince’s ZooNation, which brings its very alternative version of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, back to the Opera House’s Linbury theatre 10 years after it first appeared. I’d forgotten how its fizz, energy and sheer roof-raising brilliance were firmly grounded in a thorough rethinking of the story.
The characters become members of a therapy group led by Ernst (the seemingly ageless Tommy Franzen, as lithe and powerful as ever) and they are meant to be “normalised”. Each has a specific illness: Alice (Natasha Gooden), never knowing if she is big or small, suffers from eating disorders; the angry Queen of Hearts (Jade Hackett) has been a victim of abuse; Jaih Betote’s twitching, fleet White Rabbit has OCD.
Each is given a solo that expresses their distress – and is comforted by the group, led by the Mad Hatter, who in Isaac Baptiste AKA Turbo’s refined hands becomes a figure of tragic compassion. This frame makes the second act – a celebration of difference set around a giant tea table in Wonderland – all the more affecting.
The music by DJ Walde and Josh Cohen, performed by a live band and singers, is superb, the dancing is uniformly sensational. It’s a show that sends you out into the night feeling better about yourself and the world.
Star ratings (out of five)
QDance Company: Re:Incarnation ★★★
The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party ★★★★★
• QDance Company: Re:Incarnation is touring the UK until 19 October
• The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party is at the Linbury theatre, Royal Opera House, London, until 24 September
