Press coverage

The Guardian, 13 July 1999

The Guardian, 13 July 1999:
"The collaborators of 13 Different Keys needed a space that was large enough for dance but unlike a conventional theatre. They also wanted the audience to be moving around, within touching range of the performers. As Bull says, "People are used to seeing ballet dancers from a distance, and Sue (Siobhan Davies) was interested in getting us off that pedestal." Davies elaborates: "One of the most exciting things for me about watching dancers in the studio is seeing all that gorgeous human information stored in their bodies. I like the idea of audiences getting close up and seeing that for themselves."" (Judith Mackrell - read full article)

Time Out, July 14-21 1999:
"Specially commissioned Artangel project from top choreographer Siobhan Davies. The site is the Atlantis Building with its vast, 500 aquare metres of sunlight. This is a promenade performance with strictly limited audience capacity. The dancers are Deborah Bull, Jenny Tattersall and Peter Abegglen plus Davies company member Matthew Morris and - best of all - Gill Clarke. She's being lured back into action for yet another Davies project. Clarke, a virtual legend in her own lifetime, stopped performing last season after having danced with Davies for the past decade. The title of the piece comes from the music, played live by Reiko Ichise on viol de gamba and Carole Cerasi at the harpsichord. The composer is an 18th-century Frenchman, Marin Marais" (Allen Robertson)

The Times, 19 July 1999:
"We already know what a superb dancer Clarke is, but a revelation is what Davies's free-flowing choreography does for the trio from the Royal. Each takes on a whole new personality in Davies's hands. Liberated from the constriction of classical ballet, Bull and her colleagues relax into new vistas of heightened self expression. And that is a result which augurs well for Covent Garden." (Debra Craine)

The Guardian, 17 July 1999:
"Deborah Bull has never looked more profoundly at ease with her own dancing and the two other Royal members were equally a revelation - Jenny Tattersall's airy capriciousness, Peter Abegglen's slow burning power. But they were easily matched by Davies's own dancers - Matthew Morris with his amazingly sly supple line and Gill Clarke whose dark thrumming energy reached a shattering intensity in her central solo. If one began to move around the gallery, however, as I and a few others did, the piece came into a totally different focus, and vistas opened up that were all the more pleasing for being accidental. Manoeuvring my way to the bottom of the cross, it suddenly looked like a long avenue down which four dancers were leaping at a furious pace towards me. Emerging out of a dense group I saw Clarke and Bull being blown in a tumbling duet across my line of vision. As I moved around I invented my own structure for the piece" (Judith Mackrell)

The Independent, 18 July 1999:
"To Davies's boundless credit, the assumed clash between classical and contemporary styles of movement proves a chimera. What emerges in her hands is a richly detailed hybrid that takes the best from both. Deborah Bull, from the Royal Ballet, proves especially adept at moulding her Cechetti- trained body to the freer scooping shapes of Davies's choreography. Her opposite number, Gill Clarke, a Davies veteran, seems to grow in balletic grace to match. To the plangent strains of Marin Marais, played live on viol and harpsichord, five dancers whose training is worlds apart harmonised happily. You can spot the odd pure ballet step (Jenny Tattersall's puckish little entrechats, Bull's long, langorous arabesques) but essentially, this is vintage Davies: ever inventive, beautifully paced movement that seems to melt the hard surface of the floor." (Jenny Gilbert - read full article)

Ballet Magazine, August 1999:
"For the choreography, Davies has not tried for some sort of compromise and presents a work in her own style of cool, abstract dance. Davies never wears her heart on her sleeve, but the work does seem rather more lyrical these days and features an under-stated, elegant character. She matches the exquisite baroque music with demanding balances and subtle interactions between the dancers. Jenny Tattersall is given quick, impish steps matching her own character and in a 10 minute section where the focus switched to the musicians, it was fascinating to watch her relax on the stage and then stretch and wiggle her toes to keep stiffness at bay." (Stuart Sweeney - read full article)