Gareth K Vile checks in with his views on the latest work by Iona Kewney and Jack Webb at New Territories.
Although there are moments in Jack Webb’s piece that reveal touches of influence from Iona Kewney’s freeform approach to dance, there is a very clear gap between the aesthetic foundations of these two “small dances”. Kewney’s collaboration with musician Joe Quimby has shifted from the treated guitar loops and aggression of last year’s National Review to a Steve Riley styled keyboard minimalism and a more introverted performance, without loosing the essential extreme physicality. Webb comes from a more recognisable choreographic tradition: as he has pointed out himself, even if he wanted to imitate Kewney, her unique body and training makes this impossible.
What they do share is an emotional bravery, and a willingness to allow the particularity of their bodies to lead their movement. Having followed Kewney for over a year, the slightest shifts of mood and atmosphere become dramatic changes in style. The trademark handstands and interaction with the space are still present – she hides behind a curtain, and tears up the carefully laid mats – but there is a stronger use of humour towards the end that is comforting against the contortions and drama of the first half hour. And her continued refusal to use fancy lighting makes the final fade into darkness more evocative.
Simply by wearing a dress, and the way it rolls and riles against her body, Kewney poses questions about her identity as a woman: there is a sense that she is questioning the way that performance, in the broadest sense, both cultural and theatrical expectation, defines her. And when she finally ascends the ladder at the rear of the stage, and the lights go down, there is a sense of triumph and retreat: having made it to the top, having resolved the twists and turns into a moment of stillness, she disappears.
Webb begins with a recognisable blend of contemporary techniques and loose limbed energy: as the dance evolves, the clear movements break down into stuttering repetitions. By placing pictures of himself around the stage, and shouting into a megaphone, he surprisingly evokes a sense of chaos and disorder: if the first section expresses a sense of a man trapped, the finale is isolated and cold. In the current heated climate, the violent changes in tempo and volume feel like reflections of a riot, a man struggling for identity and loosing a clear sense of who he is.
If Kewney appears to have a more “Live Art” aesthetic, revealing less connection to dance and more to acrobatics, which she turns into a basic vocabulary of twitch and surprise, Webb is escaping the strictures of a more regimented contemporary dance training. Yet they share a fascination with the body’s potential, and the ability to express the abstract through the physical.
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