Modern Milestones is a very Veganuary evening. Enough with the tooth-rotting Nutcrackers, here comes the spelt and roughage. Yolande Yorke-Edgell forages in less-visited patches of frowny modern dance, and commissions like-minded work for her Yorke Dance Project. Her new programme is not just good for you – it’s also just good.
The first half – four pieces spanning nearly nine decades – begins with Martha Graham, the American icon who set the template for serious dance that takes itself seriously. Deep Song (1937) was a grieving response to the Spanish Civil War (its design informed by Picasso’s Guernica). Staunchly performed by Amy Thake, her limbs tilt like girders, her body squeezes into coffin-cramped space. Graham’s anguish doesn’t date – but it’s difficult to rescue her work from veneration and make it resonate again.
