Review: Ballet National de Marseille: ROOMMATES at the Southbank Centre

The Southbank Centre continues to excel in their programme of events for 2024 with the showing of the Ballet National de Marseille: ROOMMATES at the Queen Elizabeth Hall.

'A Room with a View' by Ballet national de Marseille and (LA)HORDE, from 'Roommates' at the Southbank Centre. © Pete Woodhead

Contemporary dance is not always understood but can always be appreciated and a mixed bill is perfect for the uninitiated. The variety of a mixed bill is always satisfying and while you may not appreciate all the performances there is usually something for everyone to enjoy. 

Showcasing six short exciting contemporary dance pieces the programme includes two pieces by (LA)HORDE. Brutti, Jonathan Debrouwer and Arthur Harel are the trio behind (LA)HORDE (a French dance collective). They met 14 years ago on Paris’s queer club scene, with backgrounds in dance and art, started helping each other out with projects. Over time it amalgamated into something official and since 2019 they have been artistic directors of Ballet National de Marseille. 

They have worked with some of their idols such as Sam Smith making the Unholy video and his live shows for his 2023 Gloria album and caught the eye of legendary Madonna going on to collaborate with her on her Celebration Tour. 

The remaining pieces pay homage to choreographers who have shaped (LA)HORDE’s perspective: The genre-clashing collaboration between Cecilia Bengolea and François Chaignaud, the minimalism of Lucinda Childs, hyper realist dance theatre by Peeping Tom and the contemporary vision of Claude Brumachon and Benjamin Lamarche.  

Grime Ballet ©Thierry Hauswald

The evening kicks off strongly with a heady piece of dance. Grime Ballet – Dance Because You Can’t Talk to Animals by Cecilia Bengolea and François Chaignaud who have collaborated before by unexpectedly merging very different dance styles which will keep you on your toes (excuse the pun). People think of grime as raw, urban and gritty, whereas ballet has a reputation for being pretentious and elitist, one wouldn't think to marrying the two together, but ballet and grime are just art forms and the combination makes for a unique piece of choreography. 

In an equal opportunity coup, the costuming has all four dancers wearing pointe shoes including the three male performers. The piece begins in silence, later bursting with electronic dance music. Staging is stark, dark and unembellished on which the abstract art costuming pops and enhances the movement of the dancers. There was a prolonged moment of tight rope wobbliness when a couple of dancers faced each other while on one leg with a high leg extension to the side but with contemporary dance this could well have been intentional though we found it to be distracting. 

Weather is sweet ©Blandine Soulage

Weather is Sweet by (LA)HORDE is a new work. The program explains the piece as the dancers “embodying self-love and celebrating the freedom of loving, including its absence.” Overarchingly a very sexual dance and not for the prim, feint hearted or prudish. Moments of humping the stage, one could not help thinking of the graveyard scene in the recently acclaimed black comedy film “Saltburn” (if you know, you know). Every form of sexual partnering and act is represented but what stopped it boarding on pure gratuitous shock value was the sheer moments of originality of the choreography and the dancers powerful performances.  

Oiwa by Peeping Tom, ©Thierrry Hauswald 

Oiwa by Belgian dance-theatre company Peeping Tom is inspired by the plot of the Japanese 19th-century kabuki play Yotsuya Kaidan. The curtains open to an abundant amount of dry ice generated clouds mysteriously billowing on stage and over towards the audience as the dancers emerge with naked torsos and flesh-coloured tights. The ethereal mist softens the stark nudity and sets the dance into dream focus. The variation in pace of gentle slow embraces and tenderness to increasingly violent rough and tumble movement, bordering on abuse is extreme theatre and feels exciting. The physicality of Oiwa is astounding and the clear crowd pleaser of the first half, earning a near standing ovation. 

The second half sees the stage no longer black but with a large white square stage surface for Concerto by the American minimalist choreographer Lucinda Childs, set to Henryk Górecki’s lively harpsichord concerto. Costumes have shifted from naked to modest with seven dancers dressed alike in loose fitting costumes. We observe a less theatrical start to what we have seen in the first half. This is pure and precise dance at times moving like clockwork cogs, dancers eb and flow from their groupings of diagonal and straight line dance patterns reaching a crescendo of fast paced balletic movement. 

'Les Indomptes” © Blandine Soulage , from 'Roommates' at the Southbank Centre 

Les Indomptés  (The untamed) by Claude Brumachon and Benjamin Lamarche set to music by Wim Mertens is a male duet performed by Jonathan Myhre Jorgensen and Titouan Crozier. The pair are drawn together and then pulled apart repeatedly. There is real tenderness in their performance as the dance explores masculinity and love all enhanced by the hauntingly beautiful vocals of the music. 

The evening concludes with an ensemble piece, an excerpt from Room With a View, set to music of Rone (a prominent figure in the French electronic music scene). 

The piece channels the legitimate anger felt by today’s generation as stomping feet, beating chests and fists held up to the air all aim to show the heart, passion and power of protest eventually climaxing into a celebratory rave. Dancer Sarah Abicht was a stand out in this piece as she drew the audience’s attention with her passionate performance using every fibre of her being to draw us into the mob’s outrage. The high energy powerfully danced number ends the evening rewarded by the audience’s standing ovation.  

Date: 1 –⁠ 3 March 2024. Location: Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, Belvedere Rd, London SE1 8XX.

Words by Natascha Milsom