3Fall Dance Company: Spring Tour

This week, the University of Chichester’s undergraduate dance company 3Fall presented their final performance in a 12-date national Spring Tour, returning to the university’s performance space, The ShowRoom. With the cast and choreography changing each new academic year, the programme this time was heavily vocal, at times athletic, and often humorous.

In an eclectic night of eight dances, created by students, staff and guest choreographers alike, three works stood apart from the rest.

Student Emily McAuley gave us a rare depiction of scientific content in her piece Orbiting in Space, a haunting nod to 2013 hit movie Gravity. Forces of unity became alien bodies as two dancers silently, horrifyingly detached from the mother ship quartet. Dancers used each other as axes and launch pads, pivoting effortlessly above on the shoulders and spines of each other. The sound of distorted messages was highly disturbing, and served to elevate the sense of weightlessness and disorientation.

The night took a thrilling turn in a whole new movement language, explored in the Turkish-inspired Volta by guest choreographer Ceyda Tanc. With movement initiating in the spine, the dancers rippled their curved arms in between fierce kicks and deep lunges. The lines had cleanliness, but the dynamic was aggressive: an organised chaos of sorts. Violent strings and layered percussion complemented the prison-themed choreography, cinematic in its unison moments, and engaging in its more complex formations.

In the show’s second half, the ferocity and velocity of Volta was echoed in student Yasmin Loxham-Parker’s Forbidden Territory. The rhythmic African soundtrack was accompanied by a capella live whispers and chants, demonstrating skilful timing in between sharp intakes of breath. The dancers remained grounded, religiously sweeping their arms like windmills with their knees responding in repetitive deep bends.

These somewhat heavy works were sprinkled with humour in the form of Jonathan Mewett’s There’s No i in Love, a witty critique of Apple technology, and Falling In, Stuart Waters’ 90s throwback to cheesy pop and first loves.