Let's hear it for Henri Oguike and his glorious and glamorous troupe, for providing such a timely reminder of what an utter thrill and what giddy fun it can be to watch people move to music.
His choreography has an ease and humour and sensuality that has long been absent from contemporary dance and which, if we're honest, we all rather miss. Oguike supplies in spades.
Oguike's choreography emphasizes clarity?nothing looks smudgy or ill-considered, no matter how fast or physically complicated.
Oguike is one of Britain's juciest youg talents.
Oguike is one of the best things happening in British dance right now. Everything that is good about contemporary dance is evident in his work: astute musical choices ranging from Vivaldi to modern jazz; stunning dancers who bring flexibility, timing and drama to the table and intelligent choreography that bounces off the stage and into our laps.
His collaboration with musician Iain Ballamy demonstrated beautifully how sound stimulates. The music integrates seamlessly throughout all his work, directly influences movement and brings out a playful sense of humour. His dancers are a joy to watch and were given choreography that demonstrates that our bodies are creative instruments too.
Ballamy calls his six-part suite Synaesthesia, suggesting one sense stimulated by another: the perception of sound as colour, say. Oguike extends the idea to the whole body, creating the peculiar impression that his dancers are generating the music.
Tiger Dancing, a prowl on the wild side reinforces initial impressions that Oguike's lithe, meticulous dancers can do anything he asks...Shifting moods flood bodies with green or blue light as Ballamy's music seems to possess the dancers, sending them strolling, rolling, cutting loose in flurries of adrenalised elasticity. Thrilling musicality.
Tiger Dancing opens in a silence occupied by the razor-sharp a duet between Nuno Silva and Noora Kela but the clarity of movement is so dynamic that it assumes a symmetry with the unheard melody inside every spectator. Oguike has gathered together an octet of performers to die for.
Today he is an accomplished choreographer whose modus operandi is to apply movement to music with such fierce precision that its structure and its secrets are laid bare.
Henri Oguike is one of the brightest hopes of British contemporary dance...The work vividly displays
Oguike's musicality and is full of striking, contrasting movements, with loose-limbed undulation giving way to ferocious rhythm.
Henri Oguike's talent is brave, his ambitions bold.This is an artist who takes his chances every time, even though he has nobody to catch him if he falls.
Oguike's strength has always been his ability to find such bold theatrical colour within the pure abstraction of his dance.