Dream Again Dance Co. is a newly formed Oxford-based dance com- pany, making it the second to be founded here in the last two years. Impressive, you may say; that’s a fair amount of dancing going on. However, consider the fact that there have only been three theatrical dance shows put on in Ox- ford over the last four years, that Dream Again Dance is currently made up of solely female dancers, and that perhaps dance has not had the same spotlight shone on it as, say, the dra- ma and music scenes. That’s not to say the students of Oxford do not enjoy dancing. Indeed, anyone unhinged enough to grace the floors of Park End even mildly sober on a Wednesday night will be able to confirm that dancing is spectacularly indulged in by many. Thankfully, this is not what Emily Romain, Artistic Director of Dream Again Dance and co-choreographer for their upcoming show Dull Roots, Spring Rain, has in mind when she talks about dance. “We are trying to set up something that is looking at dance artistically, rather than competitively. There’s one other company [in Oxford], the Broad Street Dancers, but they’re more focused on doing lots of different styles of pure dance, and less focused on creating a more artistically cohesive theatre piece – that’s what we want to do.” And it looks like they are going to. Dull Roots, Spring Rain, which is to be performed at the Ke- ble O’Reilly theatre in 4th week is set to bring to the audience what sounds like an ambitious contemporary ballet piece. Romain explained, “It is a three-part dance show, thematically

linked, in which the central piece tells the sto- ry of Persephone in the underworld. That was our starting point for the show; the other two pieces are more abstract, which we developed out of the Persephone story. Overall, we are exploring the idea of grow- ing up and moving on, and reconciling one- self with the present after something has happened, after some innocence is lost. So in terms of Persephone’s story, the focus is very much on her journey in the underworld; how she loses her innocence and her girlhood, and how she moves through that.” Dream Again Dance is mainly a contempo- rary dance company, which Romain admits “has always been a niche thing”, placed on the same cultural level as opera and difficult to make accessible to a large proportion of the general public. In the past decade, dance as an art form has arguably been overshadowed by popular TV dance shows; watching Strictly

Come Dancing one would be forgiven for think- ing that dancing to tell a story or express meaning outside of a competitive arena had been relegated to the confines of grand thea- tres at high prices. However, the contemporary dance scene would appear to be experiencing something of a boom, with fashion designers and film directors choosing to work with bal- let companies. For example, Darren Aronof- sky’s Black Swan, despite the criticisms it met from actual dancers concerning the portrayal of the ballerinas, gave ballet a much-needed boost. Yet the theatres, at least in Oxford, seem “scared of dance because they think it won’t sell”. Romain, a life-long dancer herself and a very active member of the Oxford theatrical community, hopes to change this by getting more people involved and thus improving the overall standard, creating a company all about “pure dance”.

Cherwell’s verdict: Promising but far from perfect.

Dull Roots, Spring Rain is a three part dance piece from the newly formed Dream Again Dance Company. The title perfectly summarises the state of Dull Roots, Spring Rain at this moment in time; somewhat insipid but with the potential to be so much greater.

Emily Romain, the Artistic director, describes the show as a “poignant exposition of the universal theme of growing up,” but what I encountered was not quite this. Of course the pieces were saturated with solemnity and contemplation, but the three interlinked dance pieces would be better described as an introduction to the themes and conventions of contemporary dance.

The show will last for only one hour and twenty minutes, short enough to keep the attention of contemporary dance virgins, but long enough to satisfy those with a more trained eye. The central themes of maturation and forgiveness are easily relatable and are portrayed well by the talented dance company.

The show comprises three separate but thematically linked pieces: Spring, Rain and Roots. I was only shown Roots and Rain, but I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the pieces. Roots explores the Greek myth of Persephone and the two other pieces also draw inspiration from this story. The combination of ancient myth and modern form worked surprisingly well together, although at points Roots seemed a bit forced. This is evident in the choice of title, a quote from T S Eliot’s The Waste Land. In order to convey the loss of innocence, the piece was overwhelmed by symbolism. The costumes will be black for parts of the piece and white for others and there will be projections depicting the story on the back wall. I found these additions slightly excessive, though as a newcomer to contemporary dance I accept they may be necessary to aid understanding.

The skill of the Romain, her co-choreographer and her dancers was obvious from the pieces, and the selection of music was also very apt. However, I did feel at points like the use of props, including white cardboard boxes, somewhat detracted from the dances.

Dull Roots, Spring Rain is an interesting introduction into the world of contemporary dance. Given a few more weeks to fully integrate the props and lighting into the piece, Dull Roots, Spring Rain could be a provocative piece of contemporary dance.

It was said of the writer James Joyce that in order to artistically ‘breathe’ he had to ‘break all the windows’. It is an image that resonates with The Joy Formidable: this band is so desperate to be arena-successful, it will attempt edgy artistic nuance by destroying what little decent music it has. ‘Bats’ and ‘This Ladder is Ours’ just reek of excess: a constant clamour as each instrument tries to be heard over the other.

Still, Wolf’s Law does have its highlights, mostly when the band experiments. You can’t help but admire a band willing to write a song in five beats per bar: it shows a spirit of originality and at least an attempt to cover new ground. The simple plod of ‘Little Blimp’ is genuinely enjoyable, as a head-banging-offbeat
bass riff carries the main focus. There is a high point of the album, as well, in the song ‘Silent Treatment’, with its daintiness of tone, thoughtful instrumental delivery and skilful interweaving of melodies. 

The album is a demonstration of that tiresome cliché ‘less is more’. On the one hand, there are these mindless  walls of sound in ‘This Ladder is Ours’, the chorus of ‘Tendons’ and ‘The Leopard and The Lung’, which are all kinds of musical anaesthetics that numb the distinction between music and noise. 

But on the other, we get some beautiful understanding of the music, as in ‘Silent Treatment’ and the detailed composition of ‘The Hurdle’. It is certainly worth a listen, if you can ignore the moments of wanton over-production, and uncover this album’s rare little sparkles.

For the past two years, alternative music has been particularly retrospective, and Foxygen feel very much like the sum of their recent retro-rock influences, rather than anything more. The psychedelic slouch of 21st Century feels like a platonic imitation of an imitation. Foxygen do a good impression of The Black Keys, and an ever better one of Tame Impala, to whom they will inevitably (and unfavourably) be compared. The band’s imitative tendencies, however, mean they can only ever be so convincing in their own right. Foxygen make all the right noises, and that’s precisely the issue with this album: these noises have been made before, and made better. 

Foxygen’s commitment to a west-coast psychedelic aesthetic creates a strong sense of cohesion across these nine tracks, but feels rather slavish. Where there are moments of genuine emotional resonance, they are, without exception, tainted by the heavy-handed addition of a wig-out coda or a ‘whoa, dude!’ change of tempo or key. ‘Shuggie’ unfurls elegantly for all of a minute before it’s interrupted by a half-baked T-Mobile advert-soundalike chorus. ‘No Destruction’ and ‘Oh Yeah’ are similarly blunted by their long, inert concluding phrases, whilst ‘Bowling Trophies’ resembles just such a coda shorn of its parent song. 

On occasion, Foxygen cleverly subvert their tendency towards retro-worship. The all-male Ronettes-style harmonies of ‘On Blue Mountain’, for example, are genuinely funny, and swell within the piece to gorgeous beauty. Such moments of self-conscious humour, however, don’t disguise the truth they attempt to undermine. Their exhortations to “rearrange your mind/if it makes you feel fine”, or “chew on gum/if it makes you have fun” make 21st Century feel tie-dyed by numbers. If Foxygen are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace and Love, their album is their embassy. They have the flag and they speak the language, but the turf they tread is someone else’s.

The short rise of Joy Division and tragic early death of Ian Curtis is a story that has been told a great many times. Unknown Pleasures, the autobiography by Peter Hook (Joy Division and New Order bassist) doesn’t exactly shatter these legends, but it does ground them in the grubby and often unpleasant world of the late ‘70s post-punk movement.

A word of warning – if you don’t know a fair bit about Joy Division et al before going in, Unknown Pleasures can be a little impenetrable. Hook seems to assume fairly detailed awareness of the ins and outs of the scene as entry-level knowledge, and sometimes this can come across as a little alienating. On the other hand, the level of detail that has gone into this is often extremely rewarding. The focus in Unknown Pleasures is largely placed on the actual process of putting a band together and making music. The track-by-track analyses of Joy Division albums offer a depth that many other rock ’n’ roll-type memoirs don’t.

Similarly, the timelines of events that are placed after Hook’s narration present a nice offset to his personal experience, grounding his observations through newspaper clippings, reviews and old interview segments. The organisation of these different titbits does serve to break up the pace a little, but this offers some relief from the slightly bleak narration that is often on offer.

Yes, Unknown Pleasures is often a grim read: it’s safe to say that this is not an aspirational book, making the ‘band’ lifestyle seem about as much fun as a colonoscopy in the rain. Chapter after chapter describes grim hotels and terrible gigs. But there’s an admirable honesty in this that’s oddly appealing.

Similarly, most of Peter Hook’s memories of Ian Curtis are those of Curtis as “one of the lads” who would play pranks and get pissed with his mates. Not to say the more artistic parts of Ian Curtis did not exist – Hook is emphatic about this. Unknown Pleasures is an account of refreshing honesty – and one that any fan would be foolish to ignore. But it is unlikely to appeal to anyone less specifically interested.

Cherwell’s Verdict:
“Gripping, gritty psychological fantasy”

Tension abounds among the claustrophobic spaces of this psychological take on science fiction, written by Oxford student Eli Keren. The plot revolves around a mission to recover a mysterious object, the ‘Aleph’, about which the five members of the cast know nothing, and which they cannot discuss. Yet with the object successfully found, the play goes on to explore the rapidly increasing difficulties faced by a small ground under huge pressure, guarding a seductively dangerous object for which the one rule to obey is that “they
can’t open the case”.

There is something Lord-of-the-Rings-esque about the whole psychological/fantasy set-up; I am reminded particularly strongly of Merry’s
tantalising obsession with Sauramon’s seeing stone in the final instalment of the trilogy. Yet to compare Alex Wood (who plays Junks, the character most susceptible to the temptations of the forbidden Aleph) to a hobbit is to pass
over his truly convincing and at times shocking portrayal of his character’s mental disintegration.

All of the actors, but particularly Junks and Captain Evans (Will Law), excel in this gripping, gritty production, in a way which makes them highly believable even within the slightly heavy-handed dependence on the language of military fantasies (there is much talk of ‘secret missions’, ‘returning to base’ and ‘reporting to the commander’). Identical uniforms and a relatively stark backdrop of two chairs, some sandbags, and a few cans of baked beans,
means that all of the energy has to come from the characters themselves – and yet they undoubtedly carry it off in style.

Conversations fly, with each angry and F-word-spattered speech bounding off the last with a veneer of flawless confidence even five days before the opening night. But anger and instability isn’t all this cast is capable of: another particularly moving scene is between the young and vulnerable Madison (Lizhi Howard) and Captain Evans, whose tragic sacrifice just manages to skirt around the edge of sentimentality and remain within the realms of the genuinely moving.

The first half of this 70 minute play is, I am told, less dark than the extract I saw from later on, such that there may possibly be less emphasis on the psychological aspect at which these actors are so proficient.

But whilst I was unconvinced initially by the idea of science fiction, of which I cannot pretend usually to be a huge admirer, this play certainly won me over, and persuaded me of the genre’s huge potential for timeless relevance.