Montreal polymath Frédérick Gravel is a dancer, choreographer and musician but all that talent doesn’t stop his piece Usually Beauty Fails being in sore need of an edit — you could chop the last half-hour, where it all goes a bit sub-Pina Bausch. When it’s good, though, it’s very, very good.
Lots of choreographers bring musicians on stage but this comes the closest to crossing the border between a dance show and an actual gig. Gravel dances, sings, plays guitar and even does inter-song banter, although his is about the nature of beauty and vulnerability rather than the “Hello, Cleveland!” type. The music ranges from dark, pulsing electro to cock rock, while the dancers play with a few pop music conventions, throw angular shapes, toss their bodies to the ground, thrust pelvises to harpsichord music and cup each other’s genitals in an amusingly deadpan fashion.
It’s purposefully un-beautiful and yet engagingly easy on the eye but the one thing Gravel hasn’t taken from the rock gig format is the sense of momentum and climax, sadly.
Worth a mention is another festival highlight, Tug by Dog Kennel Hill Project, a slightly maniacal dance theatre show on a barge travelling the Regent’s Canal and making great use of the spooky tunnel between Islington and Kings Cross. Highly original, all of it.
Until October 20 (020 7387 0031/danceumbrella.co.uk)
