NQR Dance Show Webster TheatreReviewer Molly Black 1S Miss Meikleham Arbroath High School

‘Not Quite Right’. The story of limits and possibilities interpreted through dance.

This production at the Webster Theatre in Arbroath was an interesting show, choreographed by Caroline Bowditch, Marc Brew and Janet Smith. Two of these choreographers were in wheelchairs. Which two, do you ask? If you didn’t’ already know, you wouldn’t have guessed. This is what the dance performance was all about – everyone is different and there are no two people on this planet who are exactly the same. And Scottish Dance Theatre comes together to celebrate that, and use their disadvantages to their advantage. With attitudes so optimistic, there is no doubt that their glass is half full.

To be honest, I was expecting just a quick ballet dance routine, but what I saw turned out to be a complex, well thought out contemporary piece. I had no idea that there would be a mix between disabled and able-bodied dancers dancing the same routine, as if there was no difference between the ability of their bodies.

This dance was obviously about how no matter how different a person may appear -tall, short, fat, and thin - every human has a soul and everyone experiences emotion and manages to release that emotion through dance.

My view on the movement would be that it was insightful and complex. Bodies moved around the stage and managed to cooperate fantastically in groups, separately and in pairs. The performance spoke of attachment, detachment and of need and want. It showed these emotions using long elegant movements but also managing to make the movements sharp and eye-catching at the same time.

The dancers were dressed….well, as if they weren’t properly clothed, almost half-dressed, which brings you back to the production’s name – ‘N.Q.R’. They wore colours – dull colours – that caught the light well, so that you focussed on the dance and the dancers, but the clothes set the mood very well, and helped tell the story.

The set was very bare and yet it made the stage look full. White boxes, lit up, magnified the shadows of the performers behind the boxes. The wheelchairs were also used as well. The dancers used

the wheelchairs in different ways but not in ways that I thought were entirely attention-grabbing or eye-catching.

Lighting was chosen very well, and the colours set the mood of drama, confusion, mystery and desire using blues and purples. These colours may seem calming, but they tied in well with the music, which was slightly dramatic, and which made the mood gripping and thrilling. The cellist also made it sound even better.

When the people from the dance group came to our school to work with us in P.E., I wasn’t overly excited, but the dance was okay. In English it was more enjoyable because we got to watch movies and explore dance in more depth. But overall I must say I enjoyed the dance show and I would strongly recommend it.