Platform 0.2 (Manchester)

Platform 0.2 is the second opportunity for dancers to present their works-in-progress to the public. Organised by the Manchester Dance Consortium, an artist led organisation, the aim is to give choreographers a chance to show their work at a development stage. After each dance the audience are given ten minutes to fill out feedback forms on what they have seen.

The questions are quite specific and range from the viewers initial thoughts to whether or not it has the potential to become a full -length speech. The idea is that the dancer will then be able to use the comments to develop the piece further. For the audience meanwhile, the viewing experience is changed slightly as they take a more critical and thoughtful approach.

The first dance, Crown of Thorns by Joshua Hubbard, is the most visually spectacular. It looks like a mix between a religious painting and various horror films. Around ten different dancers in different guises from a gimp to a blond dressed like a character from Clueless moved with each other and against each other in a gothic riot of movement.

The Freedom of Freewill by Urban Conceptz Theatre tackles the individual attitudes to the concepts of freedom and freewill, a challenging PHD subject let alone a short dance piece. Stylised video footage of Hitler, the Ku Klux Klan and Martin Luther King is projected as a background as the four dancers used hip-hop, contemporary dance and physical theatre to convey some of these ideologies. Interestingly the piece works best at the beginning when the video is combined with dance, but it lacks the depth to be able to tackle the difficult portrayal of Nazi brutality.

The third piece Sufi in the city, played with the concept of dance and theatre through its use of voice over and speech. It follows an Asian girl Jena as she lives her life in the metropolis having left her traditional family behind.

All three works are great demonstrations of the variety and experimentation, which the Manchester Dance Consortium encourages and provides the audience with a brilliant night out.

– Joanna Ing