Theatre Review: The Place Prize Finals

Brand new contemporary choreography is performed in THE PLACE PRIZE FINALS - the dance world’s very own hotly contested equivalent Turner Prize.

CRISP conceptual choreography is on display at The Place Prize Finals - the dance world’s equivalent of The Turner Prize.

Now in its fourth year, The Place Prize for Dance challenges choreographers of any age or experience to pitch new dance ideas to win a �35,000 prize donated by Bloomberg.

The audience also vote to award one of the four finalists a �1,000 prize nightly using handheld electronic gizmos - all very X Factor - and the element of competition obviously works as the dance is fresh and exciting.

Film noir terror is coolly played out in the drawing room in Cameo by Riccardo Buscarini & Antonio de la Fe Guedes and the cloying smell of fresh buttery popcorn creates a powerful smell-scape for Fidelity Project by Freddie Opoku-Addaie & Frauke Requardt, as a couple coldly engage in angular ultra-violence.

The stars of the show for me were Eva Recacha’s cheeky, clever and confusing Begin To Begin: A Piece About Dead Ends, a self-perpetuating circle of dance rhyme which is haunting and elegant, and the audience’s winner of the night It Needs Horses by Ben Duke & Raquel Mesguer. Two artists perform wincingly bad circus in a fog of passive aggression culminating in a noble manic gallop around the circus ring. Mesmerising.

In this age of arts austerity long may the audacity of this prize continue.

* Showing at The Place, Robin Howard Dance Theatre, Duke’s Road, WC1, until Saturday, April 16.