Akram Khan - RUSH Review

RUSH video: http://vimeo.com/23261563

My interruption of RUSH: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlYM3AjyUJQ

The stimulus of this piece of choreography, RUSH was free falling / paragliding.

My initial thoughts of the RUSH dance was drawn to the lighting as it was dark and was difficult to see the dancers, I believed this was the image Akram Khan wanted to give across, the dancers sprung up into dance and used canon to then return to their first position. Repetition and canon were used effectively to show off the stimulus of free falling / paragliding, for example the use of canon to show them all jumping out of the plane, levels were also used to show this.

Tempo was changed depending on which dancer was moving, this showed great variation in the dance and at what stages of the fall they were at, for example the slow movements followed by fast ones could represent them beginning to free fall or fall out of the plane.

Canon ended when the dancers, with their arms up began swaying as if to show almost the beginning falling sensation before what I believed to have hit terminal velocity as in canon their top parts of their bodies fall forward and their arms are stretched.

Travel was not used until after an intense pause maybe to show the freedom and powerful you get when free falling through the techniques of speeding up and slowing down and the strong arm movements into different positions.

The movements weren't smooth but edgy and light, as if they were skimming the air with their movements which has a strong correlation with free falling through the air and paragliding as the air comes up under you and pushes you forward.

RUSH was danced in a trio, I think this is because it shows just how free free falling is an example of this in the use of canon and exclusive movements for each dancer.

Lots of still gentle movements were used, for example the swaying, this gives the impression that free falling isn't all chaos and manic but at times peaceful and pleasant.

Each dance wore the same costume, not loose black clothing as they would be moving around a lot and it would be a big safety hazard if this cased them to fall or cause a collision with another dancer.

The music was felt repetitive and at times boring, I think this could've been changed to make the opening sequence more peaceful and quiet and the ending fast and powerful.

To conclude a good use of dynamics were taken into the choreography to make it an enjoyable dance with a good set of repetitive in the movements to keep the audiences attention and focus. If I was able to change one this about this dance is would be the lighting it was dark and I understood that it was supposed to resemble how although you were free falling you were still alone, heading in one direction, downward. I would have had the lights slightly lighter with a high contrast feel to it.