Rites of War, Gravity and Levity at Trinity Laban

Aerial dance company Gravity & Levity collaborate with choreographer and film-maker Darshan Singh Bhuller on a performance that takes dance into the air. Combining archive footage and the commentary of BBC war reporter David Loyn, it lays WWI alongside modern experience in an acrobatic and arresting display.
There’s a lot going on, but at the centre are two soldiers, Private George Ellison in WWI and squaddie John Smith in contemporary Afghanistan. Ellison, a real soldier, was shot one hour before the armistice came into force at 11am on the 11^th November 1918, and this sets the tone for the piece: waste as well as loss.
The Guardian described it thus: “Rites is brutally clear-eyed about the endlessness and senselessness of war. Few works nail our attention as violently as this, opening to an explosion of smoke and noise.”
Perspective shifts as the airborne dancers glide and spin from floor to walls to air as if it were all one medium. They swarm up walls that have become battlefields, or are haunted by angels that float just over their heads.
Lindsey Butler, Artistic Director of G&L, harnesses the aesthetics of dance in aerial performance, and Bhuller’s choreography continues, roped up, almost accidentally into the air.
Innovation is the constant goal of new performance, but the airborne movement guarantees something you’ve never seen before. The programme from English National Ballet, Lest We Forget, set the standard for the London dance 2014 contributions to the centenary of WWI, but Rites of War preceded it, and for pure invention and style it deserves your attention.