Dance Reviews

Case Study: Dance: Henri Oguike Dance Company

Henri Oguike Dance Company
Sherman Theatre, Cardiff

By Mike Smith

CONTEMPORARY dance evokes strong reactions from enthusiastic zeal to a jaw breaking yawn.

Step forward and take a bow Henri Oguike for taking that leap in creating dance that will thrill the zealots while engaging the yawners.
Oguike and his team of young dancers have that magical touch that takes a challenging art form and gives it the popular touch without lowering either standards or compromising the creative spark.

The Sherman programme was a beautifully conceived and presented programme of four dances contrasting in their musical inspiration and artistic style. The common denominator was their sheer theatricality.
Second Signal, to the sound of heart stopping Japanese Taiko drums, is a cross between martial arts and a grueling workout showing off the athletic as well as aesthetic beauty of the dancers. The performance of the drummers without any dancers had me hooked with its choreographed musical and physical power. Their synchronised playing of the taiko drums was a spectacular piece of choreography in itself.

White Space in contrast is set to a Scarlatti composition and the elegant harpsichord music is cleverly reflected and absorbed in dance that combines baroque controlled elegance and modern inventiveness.
Mondrian graphics fill a screen behind the dancers as they play out courtly routines, challenge one another while displaying mock gestures.

Oguike’s own show piece dance Shot Flow has the young choreographer paired with one of his ensemble for a dimly and imaginatively lit intimate seductive and tense duet. This was perhaps the most challenging for the audience as it lacked the fun and visual obviousness of the larger dances but showed Oguike at his experimental best.

The show finished with Seen of Angels, a wonderfully bright work for the whole company which returns to the ensemble strength of the group as they move to excerpts from Handel’s Messiah. He has chosen not the well-known Messiah passages but more subtle pieces rich in recitative that tell the unfolding story.

The choreography develops from the individual characters introducing themselves and their steps to the audiences and slowly the dance develops with the music until we have the full troupe in a splendid vigorous and elegant routine.

A fascinating and entertaining evening that restores your faith in contemporary dance as a relevant and, most importantly, enjoyable art and entertainment form.

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