I’ll be honest… I’ve been in no rush to write this review as it pains me to do so, also – spoiler – two negative reviews in a row.. isn’t a good president to be setting, but I said I would be honest above everything else…
On Saturday 11th November 2023, I attended a performance of ‘Common Ground’ which was performed by 3rd year (final year) Dance students from the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts (LIPA) who were performing this show at the Unity Theatre.
The seats were great, or so we thought, at Unity which is an intimate venue anyway, we were on the right side of the front row. Lots of legroom… But we had arrived less than five minutes before the performance started so I had no time to take a photo or anything other than just about take off my coat. About that.. legroom… Well the musicians were already on the stage when we arrived, on a raised platform at the back of the stage. Now Unity.. isn’t the biggest performance space and the ‘stage’ is really just ‘space beyond the front row’. The band started playing and at intervals throughout this opening song the ‘cast’ of dancers entered the stage. I would almost consider it to be a cold-opener. A selection of old photo frames are on the floor in the middle of the performance space, I guess arranged to be or to represent a glowing fire from the lighting that was on them. Some of the entering dancers brought on a chair and placed it in a semi-circle around the back of this fire pit. Then they either took up a seat on a chair and placed a mask – like a Masquerade eye-mask on a stick, over their face, crossed their legs and stared out into the audience. The scene was complete when all seats were filled and all spaces around the fire were full. Then almost out of nowhere, the entire cast breaks into song. – Not.. what I was expecting at all.
As it turns out, we have later found out that all of the Dancers on courses at LIPA are trained with basic Singing and Acting skills during their courses, additional to their Dance training. This is to ‘ensure’ they are given well-rounded skills with a view towards Dance Theatre performances as well as contemporary, traditional and other forms of Dance. – But to hear them all break into song simultaneously was a little bit of a surprise. A further surprise came when.. About that legroom.. the Dancers stood almost face to face with the first row of the audience. It was.. uncomfortably close at times and in places. Them staring out into the audience – It was then I recalled some of my past training and being taught as crew not to look directly into the eyeline of the performers. So I started looking around rather than focusing upon an individual or a few of them closest to me. But it still felt oddly up close and personal. Almost embarrassingly so at times.
The performance was one that was guided by songs linking in to one another. There were some pauses that the audience decided to fill with applause and fair enough, it still takes some guts to get up on a stage and perform in public, with an audience sitting and watching, I am taking nothing away from them at all there. But I am sorry but.. this is where things started to go downhill for me. These are 3rd year – final year – students. I recall seeing some if not all of these students performing when they were in their 2nd year, in the LIPA auditorium in a performance called ‘Calamity’. I felt, personally that ‘Calamity’ pushed them to perform at a higher, more professional level than ‘Common Ground’ did. I found ‘Common Ground’ to be a more ‘showy – Dance Theatre’ performance thant something that was designed to show the agility and skill of movement of the Dancers as they pass through the final year of their course. The songs were covers of mostly modern pop and rock songs, and while there were some moments to highlight, for the majority of the show the actual dance performances was nothing to write home about. I felt that some of the choreography was far below the ability I have seen this same set of dance students perform. I felt that some of the dancers themselves might have felt that too. It just didn’t seem to push any of them… Shame, as I believe this could have been a missed opportunity for them to really showcase their skills prior to them hopefully launching into a career in performance arts.
Perhaps I missed the point entirely, but elements of the show and surrounding the show didn’t help things either. On offer was a free programme. Except.. it wasn’t much of a programme. On the front was the ‘Common Ground’ image as featured above, followed by the title and the Director. Inside was small headshots of each dancer involved with their names printed below and on the back was the credits for some of the crew. Director, Choreographer, Lighting and Sound. The Musicians were not credited at all and they provided the music for the entire show. There was no context of explanation of the theme in this ‘programme’. It felt like it was produced very.. last-minute without much care and attention. The ‘Calamity’ programme and others too were far better in terms of the information they gave.
For the purpose of future watching, I would list the following graduating dancers as ones to watch… Izzabella Bradbury, Iri-Elisabeth Kristiansen, Sameeha Nizar and Lizzie Parker. All of whom shown performances above the ability of their peers during ‘Common Ground’ and ‘Calamity’ combined. To the rest of the 3rd year graduating students… I hope you get to perform again either together or independently, in a showcase that shows your talent and abilities. ‘Common Ground’ let you down. I know you are all capable of better.
I hope to someday say I’ve seen you performing in the world of professional dance performance.
