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The Observer | Best Dance of 2021
27 December 2021
Khan’s opaque new work for his own company, Outwitting the Devil, shared Creature’s bleak sense of oppression but contained some sensationally beautiful movement.
- Sarah Crompton
For dancers, not being able to dance isn’t just a denial of their art, but of their existence. As they practised in their kitchens during lockdown, or staged impromptu performances on outdoor stages, you could sense the pent-up energy, the desire to move waiting to be released.
Some choreographers managed to make the most of their skills on film. William Forsythe’s The Barre Project set New York City Ballet’s Tiler Peck and three exceptional male partners spinning and jumping in a tribute to every dancer’s daily ritual. Rambert, under the direction of Benoit Swan Pouffer, turned the company’s London base into a performance space, for experiment and exploration in works that varied from the intriguing (Jo Strømgren’s Rooms) to the frankly bizarre (Wim Vandekeybus’s Drawn from Within). Four intelligent films about international choreographers at work boosted the Edinburgh festival’s dance programme.
Extracted from Sarah Crompton’s Best Dance of 2021, here.