I think we can confidently say this is the first ever dance-theatre piece about the AGM of a group of medieval reenactors. In their latest collaboration, choreographer Crystal Pite and writer Jonathon Young – whose previous works include the searing Betroffenheit – land us in this leftfield setup, one that offers multiple layers, and the opportunity to get both lost in fantasy and caught in petty mundanities. “Coffee?”, asks one member arriving at the meeting. “You know it’s on the agenda that we have refreshments later,” comes the officious reply.
The distinctive style Pite and Young have honed sees Young’s clever, fast-talking dialogue performed by actors in voiceover, while the dancers lip-sync and express the text through their bodies. Their gestures have the same nervy energy as the script, exaggerating rhythm, giving the words extra articulation and physical humour (there’s a lot of comedy in the text).
We have eight characters and an important vote afoot, with dissent in the ranks. The situation is slowly revealed, and then obscured; the ground always shifting beneath our feet. Assembly Hall dances across themes: tradition, change, loss, heroism, myth, revolution, camaraderie; the porous line between fantasy and reality, and the desire for escape. While the text offers clarity, the piece also lingers in the space of not knowing, including what it wants to do about those ideas.
The dancing eventually expands to push words out of the way, in masterful solos and duets, the dancers of Pite’s Vancouver-based company Kidd Pivot having the seamless ability to switch gear from slow to fast, smooth to sudden, or spin in multiple silent turns with quiet virtuosity. Pite’s choreography is intelligent, beautiful and human, but how much does it really expand the story? Do we really feel the jeopardy? Does the climax bring revelation, or catharsis?
The craft, though, is incredible: the precision of the performers, the way Tom Visser’s lighting and the sound design (by Owen Belton, Alessandro Juliani and Meg Roe) are completely synthesised with the action. And through that exactness materialises an ambiguous world that morphs between the familiar and the strange.
• At Sadler’s Wells, London, until 23 March
