In an adrenaline-fuelled display of extreme urban sports, breakdance and electronic music the Netherlands’ ISH Dance Collective’s show, Elements of Freestyle, has mass family appeal.
Accompanied by violin and cello, the loud amped electronic score adds excitement to the moves of breakdancers who join free-runners, inline skaters, BMX flatlanders and a freestyle basketballer as they perform what seems like effortless tricks which likely took years of practice to perfect.
The ever-changing set is moved by the dancers and morphs from a multi-sequenced ramp for the skaters, skateboarder and BMX flatliner to perform breathtaking moves to a series of parallel and horizontal bars, which sees the dancers perform parkour as they swing, jump, climb at great speed. An old vintage gymnastics vaulting box and a trampoline also play their part for the dancers to jump, flip and fly over.
My enjoyment of the piece was however marred by many of the audience around me insisting on videoing the moves, despite an announcement at the beginning of the show to refrain. Nonetheless, hair-raising tricks will leave you with your heart in your mouth as you will the dancers to perfect and succeed their every move. Elements of Freestyle is about those redeeming seconds that make a complicated trick ultimately succeed; about the freestylers’ total focus on the moment, the ecstasy and the feeling of complete and total freedom.
A collective of quirky individuals who have perfected their own individual skills and disciplines blend together with perfect timing in this big playground of a set to create an edgy dance piece that is both beautiful, poetic and skilful. These are definitely not tricks to try at home but I’m sure Elements of Freestyle will have many of the children in the audience badgering their parents to sign them up for parkour classes.