Emanuel Gat is stealing thunder with tag and chase

New season: Emanuel Gat's Winter Variations
10 April 2012

Choreographer Emanuel Gat is adept at magicking steps from what looks like very little. Instead of the precision of ballet and the formalities of modern dance, his personal, intimate pieces seem to emerge from everyday gestures, from running and rolling, and games of tag and chase that are played out in unison and then in canon.

Arms intertwine like a cat’s cradle, and then whole bodies criss-cross in a rag-taggity variant of ceroc. Then they skip across the stage in arcs, only just missing each other. The best sequences feeling entirely natural, as if they’ve come from nothing, although they have, of course, all been properly organised and thoroughly thought through.

Gat is one of several very different Israeli choreographers to emerge in the past year or two, and if not exactly stealing the thunder he has attracted a lot of attention. Hofesh Shechter has won plaudits for his play on middle-eastern dance forms, as has Yasmin Vardimon for her quirky dance-theatre pieces. And now Gat, their countryman, is getting noticed for his pure-dance creations.

By pure dance, I mean there’s no obvious plot, although there is a very distinct mood in the 60-minute Winter Variations. It suggests two young lads at play, or two older men in love. Set on a bare, empty stage, it’s based on Gat’s shorter Winter Voyage last seen in London in 2008, with the same central section set to Schubert’s Winterreise augmented by two framing segments. These are less good, and extend the piece without growing it. In fact, they detract from the cohesion of the original.

We haven’t seen enough of Gat’s work in the UK to have a full understanding of his style but you get the impression that, like British dancemaker Russell Malliphant, he is best when creating small-scale pieces rather than longer, bigger work. It’s as if the greater length dilutes his ideas, which are only communicated in short, concentrated bursts. Gat and his fellow dancer Roy Assaf are able and focused but the piece lacks both variation and consistency for its hour-long run time.

Tonight only, 0844 412 4300, sadlerswells.com

Emanuel Gat Dance: Winter Variations
Sadler's Wells
Rosebery Avenue, EC1R 4TN

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