✕ ✕
Turning tips into memories
Login
Signup

You have reached the limit of free articles.


To enjoy unlimited access to Culture Whisper sign up for FREE.
Find out more about Culture Whisper

Please fix the following input errors:

  • dummy

Each week, we send newsletters and communication featuring articles, our latest tickets invitations, and exclusive offers.

Occasional information about discounts, special offers and promotions.


OR
LOG IN

OR
  • LOG IN WITH FACEBOOK

Thanks for signing up to Culture Whisper.
Please check your inbox for a confirmation email and click the link to verify your account.



EXPLORE CULTURE WHISPER
✕ ✕
Turning tips into memories
Login
Signup

Please fix the following input errors:

  • dummy
Forgot your username or password?
Don't have an account? Sign Up

OR
  • LOG IN WITH FACEBOOK

If you click «Log in with Facebook» and are not a Culture Whisper user, you agree to our Terms & Conditions and to our Privacy Policy, which includes our Cookie Use

Support Us Login
  • Home
  • Going Out
    • Things to do
    • Food & Drink
    • Theatre
    • Visual Arts
    • Cinema
    • Kids
    • Festival
    • Gigs
    • Dance
    • Classical Music
    • Opera
    • Immersive
    • Talks
  • Staying In
    • TV
    • Books
    • Cook
    • Podcast
    • Design
    • Netflix
  • Life & Style
    • Beauty
    • Fashion
    • Gifting
    • Wellbeing
    • Lifestyle
    • Shopping
    • Jewellery
  • Explore
  • Shopping
  • CW SHOPS
  • Support Us
  • Get Started
  • Tickets
  • CW SHOPS
Get the Best of London Life, Culture and Style
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
Dance

Rambert, Draw from Within on stage review ★★★★★

02 Jun 21 – 05 Jun 21, 19:30 Sat mat at 14:30. Dur.: 1 hour 10 mins no interval

Rambert is back on stage at Sadler’s Wells with its daring, experimental work Draw from Within

By Teresa Guerreiro on 3/6/2021

Rambert, Draw from Within, dancer Adél Bálint.  Photo: Camilla Greenwell
Rambert, Draw from Within, dancer Adél Bálint. Photo: Camilla Greenwell
Rambert, Draw from Within on stage review 3 Rambert, Draw from Within on stage review Teresa Guerreiro
Draw from Within started life during lockdown as a show live-streamed in real time. It was an innovative proposition; but as lockdown gradually lifts, Draw from Within gains its second lease of life as a work to be danced on stage before live audiences.


It’s an episodic, absurdist piece danced to an eclectic mix of music and the spoken word, loosely inspired by the strange pandemic times we’ve living through, and very much in keeping with the avant-garde outlook and processes of its Belgian choreographer, Wim Vandekeybus.


A diagonal shaft of white light marks a path on the otherwise dark stage, where two men execute a jaunty, vaguely Latin dance to a jazzy tune. And then one of them moves forward and recites lines from a Ted Hughes poem with the accent on the repeated word ‘nothing.’


From then on chaotic image follows chaotic image, rather like in dreams and nightmares. Liam Francis, a superlative dancer with a hip-hop background, executes an acrobatic solo downstage, while a sinister ceremony involving fire takes place in the centre of a by now darkened stage.



Rambert, Draw from Within, dancer Liam Francis. Photo: Cammilla Greenwell


There follows an extended group dance, where dancers draw ephemeral patterns with the smoke of extinguished fire sticks, criss-crossing each other but not really communicating.


The mood alters radically to one of great anguish and desolation suggested by a Balkans song translated on stage by a yearning female solo, while all around seemingly dazed dancers fall slowly to the ground, rise and fall again.


Eventually we move to a long narrative sequence. A woman in the last throes of labour staggers on, letting out blood-curling screams. A man in a suit is an excited TV presenter narrating a scene which is causing much interest and anticipation in the assembled crowd. And slowly a man who’s cleverly folded around the woman's body so that his back looks like her distended belly unfolds himself and is born.


Is he a kind of messiah? The way in which the crowd is eager to indulge him would point to his special status. And, in fact, as he develops into a cruel tyrant, so his followers become dead-eyed cult members.


The piece ends in the bare, neon-lit underground corridors of the Southbank, represented through a wide-lens photo projected onto the stage. A woman stands alone, frightened and bullied by cold, inhuman figures of authority. Is she in hospital? Does she need to be there?


Throughout Rambert’s 14 dancers perform Vandekeybus’s eclectic, acrobatic, often visceral choreography with verve and commitment. They bring us laugh-out-loud comic touches one moment and deeply disturbing nightmarish visions the next, proving they can do the sort of experimental dance theatre the company seems to be steering towards under its new director Benoit Swan Pouffer.


Draw from Within is a product of its time, possibly not a major stage work (it's lost some power in its transition from screen to stage), but certainly a vibrant, imaginative one whose images will haunt you well after you've left the theatre..

by Teresa Guerreiro

What Rambert, Draw from Within on stage review
Where Sadler's Wells, Rosebery Avenue, London, EC1R 4TN | MAP
Nearest tube Angel (underground)
When 02 Jun 21 – 05 Jun 21, 19:30 Sat mat at 14:30. Dur.: 1 hour 10 mins no interval
Price £15-£55 (+booking fee)
Website Click here to book



Most popular

Things to do in London this weekend: 27–29 January
Things to do in London this weekend: 27–29 January
Harrison Ford in Shrinking, AppleTV+ (Photo: Apple)
What to watch on TV this week
Culture After Dark: The Best Museum Late Night Openings
Culture After Dark: the best museum late-night openings
Sign up to CW’s newsletter
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).

We recommend nearby

  • Sushi Tetsu

    Feast on top-notch sushi, sashimi and udon at the sophisticated Sushi Tetsu. This tiny shrine to the best of Japanese food has only half a dozen seats at the counter, so advanced booking is definitely necessary.

    Read more...
    Book Map

Rambert

Draw from Within

Wim Vandekeybus

Sadler's Wells

Benoit Swan Pouffer

Liam Francis

Mark Ribot

You might like

  • Credit: NYCB, Four Temperaments © Erin Baiano

    New York City Ballet 2021 Digital Season

  • Lost Dog in Paradise Lost.  Photo: Zoe Manders

    Lost Dog, Paradise Lost review ★★★★★

  • Matthew Bourne's The Midnight Bell, Liam Mower and Company.  Photo: Johan Persson

    Review: Matthew Bourne, The Midnight Bell ★★★★★



  • The Culture Whisper team
  • Support Us
  • Tickets
  • Contact us
  • Press
  • FAQ
  • Privacy
  • Terms and conditions
  • Cookies
  • Discover
  • Venues
  • Restaurants
  • Stations
  • Boroughs
Sign up to CW’s newsletter
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
×