February 2025 is the inaugural month of Sadler’s Wells East, London’s newest dance house with a 550-seat theatre, six dance studios, and a public performance space all under one roof. Dance has found a new home in East Bank, Stratford/London’s latest cultural and educational district, and Irish choreographer Emma Martin makes her London debut with the 2019 solo work Birdboy.
The piece is a tribute to all the “weird kids left on the sidelines”, and is geared towards audiences of both young and adult observers. There's definitely a magical, superhero (with wings) quality that young people could connect with, but the overall feel is more Tim Burton than Teletubbies - so let's see how the work is received by audiences of the future.
Martin is a visionary in the sense that she makes multimedia work that creates atmosphere and depth of character, but the current structure of Birdboy feels like a show of two halves.
The first section verges on too busy to be able to engage with in any substantial way. The soundtrack is a relentless mishmash of musical and voice-over soundbites. Add to the equation a Turner Prize-like banged out old Volkswagen with disco lights and numerous other technical abilities, and performer Kévin Coquelard bringing physical theatre dance, comedy turns and lip synching to the party, and you probably catch my drift. Hectic.
At a certain point, some 25 minutes in, things change and Birdboy, the individual and the piece, take a different route. One with more space, time, movement language and associated depth. There's a beautiful section of projected storytelling, think primary school paraphernalia, which gives further gravitas to the notion of the ‘outsider’, and expressive dance is used to confirm its capability of giving both comfort and power to the expressor.
Here we also experience narration of value. What can be assumed as the voice of Birdboy himself lists his likes and dislikes, the complexities of being a young person in an adult's world, and the reality of peer pressure and exclusion. It's both authentic and poignant.
Birdboy has stage companions throughout; a form of plastic bag/balloon floating cephalopod ghosts, and these otherworldly creatures signify what Martin has created. Something recognisable and unknown simultaneously - and that's pretty impressive.
Birdboy is at Sadler's Well East until 22 February
Photo Credit: Luca Truffarelli
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