Linbury theatre, London
These gems, old and new, include an intense revival of Martha Graham’s Deep Song and a new piece by Christopher Bruce set to Leonard Cohen songs
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.
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