Sweat Baby Sweat, The Place - dance review

Jan Martens's Sweat Baby Sweat is a seriously intimate duet that’s like an intensely slow acro-balance routine for a couple who literally can't let each other go
Lyndsey Winship7 October 2013

The annual Dance Umbrella festival is a showcase for the best international choreographers you've never heard of. The work on show is fresh; pieces with strong physical concepts, rather than straight dance.

Flemish choreographer Jan Martens's Sweat Baby Sweat is a great example, a seriously intimate duet that's like an intensely slow acro-balance routine for a couple who literally can't let each other go. With dancer Kimmy Ligtvoet balanced on Steven Michel's thighs or hanging by her feet from his neck, they are clasped together in a variety of improbable poses, their bodies folded in a Swiss roll of beige limbs.

By the time they repeat the sequence, the physical demands are visible. The dancers are dripping with sweat and desperation, muscles shaking as they strain to hold each others' weight. It evokes exactly the clammy-bodied, wide-eyed, post-coital state of exhausted exhilaration, and it shows that all-consuming desire can be difficult and destructive too. From there on the piece loses its bite, until a witty coda involving love song lyrics provides a final lift.

Until October 20 (020 7387 0031/danceumbrella.co.uk)

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