It doesn't seem like just three years since Ross's degree show. And yet here is Robert graduating in his turn now.
I've not seen a lot of his work over the past few years. A pre-student piece
done as part of a community festival in Harlow
and a student work in progress performed
with his friend, Tom.
So, I was really excited to be travelling down to London to attend a graduand performance at the Laban Dance Centre.
It also turned out to be a gathering of people associated with my Percy Street years. Not surprizingly, Gill was there. It was good also to see Malcolm and Alan and Jeremy. There was Paul, one of Robert's friends when he was little, who is now a fully grown man in his own right having just graduated from a Fine Arts course in Cardiff. And there was Robert's current partner, Vivienne. Slightly more difficult was spending time in the company of Richard who was my partner in the early 1990s.
I will just say that he hasn't changed much and most of the reasons why I finished with him still pertain. He's not learnt the grace of listening (every conversation is viewed by him as a series of opportunities for him to tell stories about himself) and he does not know the meaning of boundaries and personal space. We eventually parted company on the Docklands Light Railway. I got off the train at Heron Quays to transfer to the Jubilee Line and left him to continue his journey on his own. The symbolism was not lost on me.
Anyhow, I wasn't going to let my feelings about Richard get in the way of Robert's big night.
A quick glance at the programme informed me that there were two halves, four pieces in each half and that Robert's piece was to be given at the very end.
The first piece was a video work. I liked its delicacy. However, it felt as though it would have been more at home as the output from a fine art course rather than a dance college. This was a theme that was to follow me through the evening. I kept feeling that there was a crisis going on somewhere because many of the pieces on display were more about what dance is not rather than what dance is.
The second piece involved two dancers, a chair and a lot of movement in a very flat plane. There was a lot of repetition, sequence and variation. It just wasn't very well achieved and the two dancers seemed a bit woolly about the body shapes they were trying to form. Next up was a very good-looking young man who gave us a very committed performance (he was designer, choreographer amd performer). However, it was a performance that had its technical lapses as well as being very self-indulgent (he was designer, choreographer amd performer). He really could have done with a trusted friend to tell him how much to cut. The final piece of the second half gave us a take on death and was embarrassing. I wasn't sure whether the choreographer had too little to say or whether the emotional content was too recent and too raw. Whatever, the result was performance that was a mish mash. The performers did not appear to be comfortable.
Out to the interval. Much talk and guarded chatter. Difficult to slate any of the four works. Friends and family might be standing close by. A video of a dance work played nearby. We all agreed that student work should be about challenging expectations and that everything should be work-in-progress at this point in a career. Tongues were only partly in cheeks.
Back into the theatre for the second half. The first piece was a psycho-drama. Audience members had been asked on stage. They formed the set if you like. The performer spent the whole piece shuffling round on her knees and emoting. The piece had a fascinating quality. The on-stage audience became participants in the drama whether they were being shepherded around the stage or were being forced to interact with the performer or were oblivious and just getting on with their lives. I have to pay tribute to the performer because she did give everything to the piece and was unflinching in the honesty of her emoting. However, it all rather smacked of the psycho-drama movement of new York in the 1970s, 80s. We had 15 minutes. In New York such a piece would have effortlessly been extended to over two hours and the audience would have applauded the authenticity. I'm afraid I just felt that it was self-indulgent. I'm not sure that I want to intrude into someone else's counselling session. In conrtast to the first half, there was, at least, some content to think about.
The next piece was a triumph of style over content. Three women in 18th Century pastiche costumes moving slowly and statuesquely. A man in a loin cloth writhing. Lurid colours on the cyclorama - however, the first time that vivid colour was used all evening. All it needed was a marble floor to have been a Robert Carsen opera production out of the elegant euro-trash school. There was lots of pretentious symbolism concerning threads and birthing. I wasn't impressed.
Then the third piece started. And I sat up. Music. Good god, music. I'd forgotten that music and dance often go together. Three dancers, two men and a woman. Costumed. That's costumed rather than attired. Enough to differentiate them. And enough to make an elegant statement. They sweep onto the stage in an arc to form a line across the back wall. It's an opening gesture like a gate opening or a door opening or a book opening. But it's a gesture, a big, bold, theatrical gesture that says Hey guys, wake up, the shows starting. And I think, well this is the first time this evening that someone has known how to grab an audience's attention.
And then the three people on stage dance. Yes, they dance. They move in three dimensions, with energy, supported by music. They interact. They touch. They lift. They produce complex geometric relationships. And they use the rythmn and drive of the music to kick into very definite shapes. And I realise what a lot of the previous presentations have lacked is sheer attack. These performers have been drilled. They know what is expected of them and they are going for it. And they appear to be enjoying themselves. And again I realise something that has been lacking so far - a lightness of touch. This piece is not about humourless navel gazing. It is an exultation of movement.
And at this point I say to myself. This is really good. Robert is going to have to pull out all the stops in the fourth piece if he is to top this.
Then there's a change of mood. Back projections, colour, texture, a lone figure, the woman, moving slowly in front of the kaleidoscope. It's two dimensional and three dimensional at the same time. It's like the first piece of the evening revisited and transcended. And then we're back into a quicker final section with all three dancers. And I think, oh so this person knows about structure as well. This is like the form of a classical sonata with fast, slow, fast movements.
And we applaud at the end. And I'm impressed. Here was someone who didn't have to show their independence by exploring the things that dance doesn't do well. Here was someone who was mature enough to take on dance on its own terms, to combine music, movement and design at the highest level, to use the rules for their own purpose. In comparison with the other pieces, it might have been seen as being conservative but that's only if you define radicalism as being juvenile rule-breaking. I think the greater triumph is to find new expression within well grounded rules. As I've said before, in order for us to go beyond the 20th Century's obsession with dismantling rules, I think we need to come to terms with the 18th Century's understanding of the need for structure.
So, I braced myself. I had rated that piece very highly and I was very worried that Robert's piece would not be as good and that I would have to be diplomatic in terms of how I expressed an honest opinion.
And then the audience stood up and started to leave.
And I checked myself. What was going on? Well, it turned out that there were
only three pieces being performed on stage in the second half. The first piece
in the programme was the video work that was shown during the interval. What
I had sat through admiring with an innocent eye was in fact Robert's piece.
Joy abounding. 
And I have to say that I felt as chuffed as a chuffed thing and not a little proud.