Aakash Odedra is a beautiful performer. Trained in the classical Indian dance forms of bharatyanatyam and kathak but working principally with contemporary choreographers, his dancing combines classical rigour with a mercurial, adventurous lightness. And even though sections of his new double bill feel cluttered with too many ideas and effects, you still watch riveted as Odedra’s slender feet rap out complex equations of rhythm; as his arms trace elegant arabesques, even as his body contorts into disturbing ugliness.
The two works in this programme are both rooted in personal experience. In Inked, Odedra and his choreographer Damien Jalet take inspiration from the ritual tattoos Odedra remembers adorning his grandmother’s skin, and then move into ideas about transformation. It opens with a slow-motion trompe l’oeil– a dark human figure at the back of the stage turns out to be a body-shaped doorway through which Odedra gradually appears. As he dances he marks himself with black ink – simple patterns that evolve into wilder slashes and smears. With each marking, his body metamorphoses into a different, creaturely form; crouched and scuttling, boneless and slithering, light and spinning like tumbleweed.
Around him, lighting designer Fabiana Piccioli transforms the stage into a landscape of luminous pathways and pools. It’s a shame that this intense private fantasy unravels in the long final section, where Odedra’s body turns human paintbrush, marking patterns on the floor. It’s a familiar conceit, used by many other choreographers.
In Murmur, Odedra collaborates with Lewis Major, to portray the experience of being dyslexic. He reveals that until he was 21 he could not spell his name; and the outstanding moments of this solo come when his dancing combines with digital imagery to portray the confusion and alienation his dyslexia caused. Meaning flies in pixelated clouds from a book he tries to read, his body is shadowed by an aura of scratchy distorting light. Odedra only looks easy in his skin when he’s alone and dancing – his central solo, in a syncopated, almost jazzy style of kathak is a joy.
But these piercingly effective moments are diluted by distracting stage business and props. The finale, in which Odedra is whirled in a blizzard of paper and words, is striking but overlong. Odedra should trust in the fact that the most interesting thing on stage is always himself.
• At Nottingham Lakeside Arts, 27 January. Box office: 0115-846 7777. Then touring.
