You are right, though, that the company is definitely one to watch and I hope to see the shoots of promise which were visible in this double-bill grow into something bigger, more powerful, and entertaining in his next work.

Bringing dance styles together is always a challenging task, and in this case it didn’t really work for me. It takes a lot longer than nine months to become proficient at Kathak, and the style that the dancers had been taught did not sit comfortably on their very Contemporary bodies. Evidently Balbir Singh was not trying to create Kathak dancers, but many of the details and grace that Kathak, used well, can bring to enliven Contemporary dance were missing. Forme these include precise articulation of the hands, wrists and fingers (far too many flat hands and ‘scooping’ last night), subtly curved limbs (many hyper-extended arms in last night’s work), and very importantly life and engagement in the face (each dancer was self-consciously in their own world and did not display the awareness and delight in their movements, each other, the music, and the audience that one expects in kathak).

Mind you, the music was lovely, and I especially enjoyed the guitar and tabla working together.

As a new RFO, this is probably a company to keep an eye on, and I hope the Contemporary/Kathak relationship becomes more organic and less forced as Balbir Singh’s work progresses.