By BRUCE DENNILL
WGRUV Dance Company: Letters Of Reflection / Artistic director: Holly Gruver / Lesedi, Joburg Theatre, Braamfontein, Johannesburg
New-ish dance company WGRUV (this is their third year in operation) continues to develop its reputation with an expanded company – 13 dancers now – and a powerful new programme in Letters Of Reflection. A large part of the production’s instant appeal is its accessibility relative to many contemporary dance shows. As suggested by the title, the conceptual conceit here involves a series of documents read in a voiceover as one dancer (Wenzi Magasela) plays the narrator against some complementary projected backdrops. The text doesn’t tell a story, but it does evoke a sense of the value of meditating on amorphous qualities that matter, including truth, beauty, faith and goodness.
Beyond that, each individual piece – four in the first act and three in the second – is supported by appropriately moody lighting by Oliver Hauser; choreography of varying pace and texture by Holly and Lex Gruver and American choreographer Tyler Gilstrap, a regular WGRUV collaborator; and an intriguing mix of musical excerpts. In the latter area, there are well-known composers (Erik Satie, Dave Brubeck) and comparatively unfamiliar writers and performers (Tâches, Lane 8 Anderholm, Kahn Wakan), making for a sonic journey of peaks and troughs, with varying energy and moods.
A strong first act concludes with one of the production’s major highlights, Moving Forward. It features the whole company and matches its atmosphere to the ensemble’s movement, with excellent synchronisation between the dancers delivering a final moment to the routine that ensures the audience goes into the interval on a high.
Brubeck’s Unsquare Dance kicks off Act 2 with infectious energy, with the two male dancers, Ruan Galdino and new member Javier Monier Jr (ex-colleagues at Joburg Ballet – the two men know each other well and have experience on stage together) mirroring each other brilliantly in terms of both strength and grace.
The piece that follows, Confusion, is another high point, with its edgier soundtrack parallelled by lighting that makes the spotlights looks like they’ve shattered on the stage floor. It’s a pas de deux featuring Galdino and Saili Gruver, and it soon becomes evident that they have – and will hopefully continue to develop – a superb partnership, with outstanding technique individually matched by obvious professional chemistry and a level of rehearsal that allows them to flow as a single unit even when one dancer’s back is turned on the other and they can’t see what the other is doing.
The closing piece, Prayer, is gently potent, with Galdino and Gruver again excellent and supported by another quartet of dancers in choreography that pushes everyone hard (given that it’s right at the end of the whole production) with wave after wave of measured motion before a triumphant curtain call.
Letters Of Reflection feels like a major step forward for a company working hard to build a reputation and level of proficiency that will attract more interest and investment, in turn allowing for further growth and support of more talented artists.
