Introdans brings four choreographies about flowing water together into a graceful evening ★★★☆☆

You imagine yourself a dance evening in a softly bobbing bubble. It’s amazing how the Arnhem company Introdans under the name aqua brings together four choreographies that only emphasize the sweet side of flowing water. Undulating motor skills, fluid interplay, endless swell, smooth dives – and in the choice of music you can hear the tingling of bubbling bubbles. That makes aqua to a gracious but also somewhat watery, well-behaved evening.

The immersion begins with a dancer performing in Harbor Mess (2015) washes up on a beach and searches for the shelter of a trio with two colleagues. In this miniature by hotshot Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui sometimes their fingertips touch, then again they play an imaginary cube. But usually a wave flows through their bodies, which they sometimes cause solitary, sometimes propel them forward together. This earthly prelude is quickly swallowed up by the branding of a group piece by former Intro dancer Jorge Pérez Martínez. In front of aqua he extended his optimistic Azul (2017) on three Spanish guitar classics with even more clearly timed motor skills, now on Vivaldi’s mandolin concerto against a back wall in shades of blue. Azul This gives it the character of an endless beach walk along a Mediterranean coast, with your toes in the surf.

In the acrobatic trio Earth (2018) by Manuel Vignoulle, three dancers in tribal catsuits maintain constant body contact as they climb and slide over each other’s shoulders in a fluid movement sculpture. Finally take in Oceana (2011) by Lucinda Childs six couples across the floor. Like a school of fish, they swim with their limbs splashing in front of a gigantic video projection of swirling water. The Intro dancers make a meditative play of this endless float on the Argentine composition of the same name for guitars, harp and musing vocals.