Being Cultural

Or at least, trying to be.

It's a Friday evening and I'm sitting front row of second circle Sadlers Wells to witness the first ever Sadlers Wells Sampled, in association with Playstation, weekend.

What is Sadlers Wells Sampled? Well, quite. I wasn't sure either. Despite studying dance until my midteens, I've become pretty uncouth these days when it comes to the arts.

Soon enough all becomes clear and I'm about to watch six completely different styles of dance all crammed into one show. And so there I am, with one dance fanatic, one dance lover and one dance IDon'tKnowWhat'sGoingOnHere. I feel a bit nervous. What if I don't "get" some of it? What if I laugh when I'm not supposed to laugh? What if it's boring and my friend thinks I'm a philistine?

I'd like to say I needn't have worried, but thirty seconds into the first dance and I'm lost. On stage is a boy and a girl. They run, leap, fold and bend. Then they do it again. Then they're wrapping limbs around each other, then the guy is doing a solo. It's called Random Dance. To see it is to understand why. The whole time I'm watching, I'm trying to build a story in my head. I don't want them to be bounding around the stage for no reason. I NEED A REASON. Random isn't bloody good enough. I can clearly see they are very talented dancers, but I'm not appreciating it at all.

Now it gets good. The Vagaband Crew are an amazing hip hop dance act. Spinning on heads, bouncing on hands, popping along the stage on their bellies - I could have watched this for hours, these young, fit, apparent owners of bones made from noodles, men. And the majority of the auidence seemed to agree as the applause was raputous.

The next piece was "Jump" by the Yegam Theatre. I'm not sure how long this went on for. However long was long enough. They were all very talanted at jumping around and breaking slats with their hands and feet but the silliness began to grate after five minutes.

Fag break - also known as "interval" - and we're standing outside. I suddenly realise that there are a lot of people the same as IDon'tKnowWhat'sGoingOnHere girl and I. Some people are "getting it" and others clearly aren't. But it didn't matter, because everyone was enjoying themselves. Just on different levels, I suppose.

The second half and I fall in love with ACGI (Anyone Can Get It). A tap group from New York, their piece involved a "tap off" between two groups of three. Then they'd come together, tapping heel for heel, toe for toe in time with the drum and each other.

The mood darkens for Hofesh Schecter's (no, I have never heard of him either) piece which involves eight normally dressed men running around the stage in an animalistic fashion, then hugging, then running, then fighting, then shrugging shoulders, repeating process. I likes this. Why? Fuck knows. Same as with Random Dance I've tried my hardest to build a story in my head, but it all turns to shit with the next sequence of hugging. Generally, I like moody things. Music, films and now it seems also dance. Plus, you can't really go wrong with eight male dancers, can you? Any girl is going to find something to like there.

Now, this is where give up trying to make sense of anything. Swamp by Rambert included a guy with ginger hair wearing lime green spandex and lots of dragging of bodies across the stage. I spent the whole time watching ginger lime guy in morbid fascination. Why, just why, would you put a ginger man in lime green? But, ginger lime guy aside, I found this piece a bit....I'm loath to say this but....pretenious. Oh no! What have I done?! I'm sighing right now, by the way. Because I can understand that I don't understand, but don't know how to make anyone else understand that. Do you see? The working class gal in me wants to scream "WHAT A LOAD OF WANK!", but I know that's not true. I can appreciate why others would love this. But I never could. Mostly because it's a load of wank. And has a ginger guy wearing lime fucking green spandex which moulds around his willy and leaves nothing to an innocent girls imagination.

And that was my Friday night. Dance is good. Dance is fun. I liked the tap best cos it goes taptaptaptap at really fast paces!!!!!!!!!

If you'd like to see what I'm going on about with your own eyes, watch highlights from the weekend here.