Young identities and unrestrained verve in Mapdance's 2025 Tour
- Janejira Matthews
- Apr 3
- 3 min read
Mapdance, currently an all-female touring company led by artistic director Yael Flexer, presents a bill of refreshingly unique work. The dancers showcase a skilled range from technical contact to theatrical caricature, attacking a range of choreography with unreserved panache.
KIZ, choreographed by British-Turkish artist Ceyda Tanc kicks the evening off. Defiant gaze, outstretched limbs with fluid fingers, soft embraces and touching foreheads shapes a strong female space. A duo entwine their arms around each other, heads meet before they part with arms flowing in an arcing wave. As the dancers warm to the piece, the celebration of female identities gradually shifts from tenderness to unapologetic vibrancy. By its final section, the dancers pump their shoulders back and forth in a joyful assertion of self, swaying and whipping arms as a sisterly collective. Fuelled with camaraderie and Tanc’s earthy movement style, KIZ throws the emotional subtlety and pride of feminine being into view. A strong sense of the dancers’ own identities lends depth to the work, and it is a pleasure to witness their growing self-possession as young performers. As a work, KIZ has an absorbing energy that is held in stillness and then released, creating captivating movement patterns that are visually striking.
Exploration of identity continues throughout the night, extending to artist struggles in Ben Wright’s Even After Everything. In a departure from KIZ, the dancers succumb to chaos marked by frustrated, loud jumps with lax feet. At other times, their limbs pull to extreme edges with feet flexing and metatarsals spreading. Wavering between hope and fatigue, there are moments where a head is clutched and a palm reaches out, versus talk of dreams and a blue sky. Indeed, Even After Everything is driven by spoken word, images repeatedly vocalised to progress into various sections and adjust the mood. Encouraging the company to explore their craft beyond movement through speech makes Even After Everything a fitting piece for dancers at the start of their careers. It’s easy to get the impression that we’re witnessing the edge of a frustration that will balance and mature with a performer’s sense of self. Moreover, seeing the company attack Wright’s choreography with such voracious energy is thrilling, even in heavier moments that address hardships rather than excitement for artistic endeavour.
Other, less happy areas of being continue to be leant into with Rhiannon Faith’s What is the pain and how do we hold it? as the dancers offer autobiographical experiences of pain. The image of hurting slowly grows and becomes more real as the dancers ease into the piece, and although the dancers talk about what pain feels like, it’s curious that the visualisation of pain is centralised throughout. ‘There is a pain in your heart – describe it’ the dancers chant as individuals alternately come forward to do just that. Pain is painted in words as a cold sunset, as frostbite – something numb but obvious to the eye. The most touching scene is this sequence, and as one dancer talks about her pain another shakes and trembles. The movement is passed on and transforms into another physical expression. Sometimes there is comfort, a hand on a shoulder. Caricatures of crying and wailing are stitched in but it is the quiet moments that stick. What is the pain switches from sensitive to uncomfortable studies in the space of a few minutes and is grappled with fearlessly by its dancers. Occasionally the sincerity wavers as the dancers warm to the piece but the focus evolves through hurting into tangible defiance. The autobiographical element of the piece makes its performance ever braver without being over-sentimental.
Let Us Know You, originally choreographed by Luke Brown for Mapdance in 2023 is perhaps the most physically experimental work of the bill. Counter-balances and angular extensions create a playfulness for the body as the dancers move through cycles of death and rebirth. Indeed, moments of contact are Let Us Know You’s strongest moments. Dancers lie on the floor with legs extended in a V to support their partners, balancing on one side, seemingly relaxed – I’m reminded of the reclining Buddha. Undertones of Eastern thinking are stitched into the work as one dancer meditates amidst the loud chaos of her peers in peaceful detachment. The result is a dark, tough work tinged with a mix of resistance and acceptance.
Tinged with shades of light and shadow, this year’s tour from Mapdance is a dive into the fun, difficult and exhilarating. Each work carries a strong sense of identity from the company as a larger group, alongside more personal touches from individuals that deepen the experience.
You can catch Mapdance on tour across the UK by checking their website for tickets and performances: https://www.mapdance.org/tour-dates/
