Wow, the energy in a single big toe. That’s dancer Amy Thake’s toe, her sole thrust forth with implacable strength, that digit stretching away, bristling with intention. If you can get that much out of one foot, just wait till everything else starts moving. Thake’s solo is Deep Song by Martha Graham, from 1937, made in response to the Spanish civil war. It’s only six minutes long, but it is an intense six minutes: the exactitude of Graham’s stripped-to-the-core style, the weight and grace and power. Among other things it is a picture of a kind of exhaustion when one’s soft edges are shorn off by the load borne.
As well as reviving 20th-century gems – such as Bella Lewitzky’s Kinaesonata (1970), danced with racing speed and millimetric accuracy – Yorke Dance Project is trumpeting two premieres in this rich and really excellent programme. Troubadour is the first new work from choreographer Christopher Bruce (now 80) for more than a decade.
Best known for 1991’s Rooster, set to the Rolling Stones, Bruce chooses Leonard Cohen this time. The songs, and Cohen’s deep drawl of a voice, are hugely atmospheric. It’s three-piece suits and wine-red dresses, scenes from a half-remembered midnight in a smoky club. They tango through love, desire and fallibility, but Bruce never settles for the obvious in these couplings, always inventive, as are the endless rhythmic variations of the steps within the frame of a 4/4 beat. The craft is clear; Bruce has still got it.
Up-and-coming choreographer Liam Francis also knows the value of a good soundtrack. Composer Jethro Cooke’s creation for Cast|X| uses fragments of film dialogue: “What have you done?” “I had no choice!” There are immediate parallels with choreographer Crystal Pite, bodies moving in response to quickfire text, but Francis’s movement is more amorphous – you can sense guilt, uncertainty, accusation, interconnectedness, without it coming into sharp focus. It’s promising.
Best of the night is Lacrymosa, made for the company in 2015 by the late Robert Cohan, inspired by the idea of Mary losing her son Jesus to his calling. Having danced with Martha Graham, Cohan learned the art of choreographing no more than was necessary – there’s no small talk here yet it says so much. It’s masterfully made with bold, stylised strokes, but emanates a deep humanity, while dancers Jonathan Goddard and Eileih Muir make it starkly beautiful.
At Linbury theatre, Royal Opera House, London, until 22 January
