Compagnie Niya, Gueules Noires review ★★★★★

All of a sudden coal miners are all over the London stage. Just last week, National Dance Company Wales presented Anthony Matsena’s remarkable homage to the coal miners of Wales in his compelling work Codi at The Place.

A couple of days later across the river the National Theatre opened its revival of the play The Corn is Green, set in a Welsh mining community.

Finally, France’s award-winning Compagnie Niya kicked off Sadler’s Wells’ annual festival of hip-hop, Breakin’ Convention, with its very own homage to the miners of the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin, Gueules Noires (Black Faces).

Choreographed by Rachid Hedli, whose father was a miner there, Gueules Noires is performed by four dancers and a musician, all of whom are the children or grandchildren of the miners evoked in the piece.

Gueules Noires is a fragmentary piece, at times frustratingly so, which relies on deeply atmospheric lighting to create the claustrophobic setting of deep mining shafts. The stage is plunged in deep penumbra and penetrated only by cones of light from above or shafts from the wings. In one particularly effective section, the sole lights are those of miners' headlamps, moving about the stage in a panicked flurry.

Piles of coats hanging from hooks play an important visual role, though we’re not entirely sure of their significance in the context of the piece. Sometimes they’re just there, hanging lifelessly; at other the dancers unhook their coats and put them on, or take them off and hang them.

The soundscore by Romuald Houziaux, who puts in an appearance in the final section playing the accordion, is predominantly a blend of the sounds of machinery typical of an industrial region.

Over one hour the dancers stride purposefully on, occasionally launching into too short sequences of breaking and popping. They enact impressionist tableaux of miners’ life: back-breaking work, displacement (most of the miners are North African migrants), illness, revolt, companionship and solidarity.

In a short break from work, they sit on benches and exchange jokes; in another sequence they mimic throwing of stones during a protest.

Gueules Noires has much to recommend it. The four dancers are compelling; the sections that work really draw you in; but there is a lot of dead air in between, where your mind inevitably wonders.

Breakin’ Convention continues over the weekend. Full details and tickets here.