The Saturday evening triple-bill at Earthquake Dance, Northern Ireland's first festival of international dance, was a multi-cultural affair. A thoughtfully eclectic programme brought together the young, black dance of Birmingham-based ACE, the shamelessly artificial and bewitching spectacle of Bollywood dance, and the athleticism and classical perfection of Scottish Ballet's male dancers.
This was the climax of six busy days of workshops, exhibitions and classes, organised in association with the Waterfront Hall and involving the Saturday performers, as well as the Laban Centre-backed Transitions Dance Company, and the provocative former Royal Ballet stars now known as the Ballet Boyz.
ACE stormed into the evening with "3 Shades", a trio of pieces conceived by choreographer Gail Parmel and musician Ian Parmel, and designed to weave through the explosion of black popular culture in inner-city Britain over the past 30 years. The first piece, "Liquid", is all hard-edged, aggressive, digital music and automaton movements, whose enhanced clicking rhythms are inspired by computer keyboards. Next comes a fusion of 1970s disco and 1990s rap, in which afro hairstyles and feather boas give way to streetwise aggression and funky breakdancing. Finally, "Peaches" is an innocent, girly celebration of Motown music and imagery. The Bollywood star Honey Kalaria provided a pretty diversion with her tinkly, exuberant dance masala of traditional Indian, Arabic and western movement, portraying a young girl in love, to the strains of a jaunty, wailing serenade. But the best was saved for last, in the sensuous shape of Robert North's "Troy Game". Silkily presented and danced with a heady combination of languor and strength, this demanding piece pays homage both to ancient warrior rituals and contemporary macho posturing, in which each dancer vies to outdo the other, leaving the audience with a wink, a nod and a gasp at the sheer virtuosity of it all.
