In their latest Fringe show Trip The Light, the youthful Junebug Company (Sophie Ammann, Rosanne Briens, Erin O’Reilly) are joined by WAVE (Pauline Raineri), for a triple bill of contemporary dance. This comprises two recent works—Two Blue and SI | SI—and a ‘Carte Blanche’: a section where the dancers improvise to both music and ideas suggested by the audience.
Two Blue, choreographed by the Junebug Company and danced by Ammann and Briens, considers the influence of friendship on our own self-development. The dancers are clearly very comfortable with the choreography and indeed with each other, and there is a touching interaction between the two. Their movements feel easy and relaxed, and there is a really pleasing guilelessness to it all. Although the choreography does, perhaps, lack a little sophistication generally, at the same time it is refreshingly unfussy and unselfconscious.
SI | SI, a solo work for O’Reilly choreographed by Raineri, is an interesting look at the conflict between external image and inner self. This is an intense work, and at times it almost feels as if the dancer is breaking apart, her movements repetitive, jerky and frustrated. O’Reilly is a really talented dancer and Raineri’s choreography is extremely effective. The result is a really fruitful collaboration.
The Carte Blanche seems very out of place after these two successes. It would be a big ask of any dancers to improvise something worthwhile from a random piece of music and the title of a film (The Secret Life of Pets on this occasion). Although this is admittedly quite fun, and the dancers throw themselves into it very enthusiastically, it feels much more like a dance exercise than anything else. It is all a bit dreary and unfocussed given what has come before.
However, the four dancers are really very good: they have an amazing energy—they are chock-full of vitality and zest—and they have produced something really honest and very worthwhile. They are certainly dancers and choreographers to watch out for in the future.