BalletBoyz - Them/Us - Touring, Autumn 2019

[Ian Macmillan]

The 6-strong BalletBoyz company is on a short tour with a double bill, Them/Us, that I saw in Cambridge last night.  Lots of athletic control on display to specially commissioned, if somewhat insistent, scores recorded by by a 10-strong string/percussion group. 

 

Each piece was around 30-minutes long.  Them/ was choreographed by the dancers to a score by Charlotte Harding and featured varying groupings, frequently using and manoeuvering a large tubular steel cube.  /Us by Chris Wheeldon is an expansion of a duet he had previously created for the company, with a score by Keaton Henson.  That pdd occupies the final 10 minutes or so and is very palpably "us," with a backstory of sorts preceding it, revealing more movement, jumps and lifts than in /Them.  The show does not lack in earnestness and, as I say, it features considerable control from all six dancers.  Well worth seeing - though I can't help feeling that the addition of a couple of BalletGirlz would add a touch of colour.