Agudo Dance Company, Carmen review ★★★★★

Carmen is one of the best-known characters in European fiction, her story reprised over the years in countless theatre, opera and dance adaptations of Prosper Mérimée’s 19th-century novella.

She is the freedom-loving gypsy who defies the stifling conventions of Seville’s macho culture, her reckless defiance and sexual allure surely part of the reason for Carmen’s continuing appeal.

The question for this Carmen, brought to The Place by the Agudo Dance Company as part of a UK tour, was: what can you say that hasn’t been said before? The answer, in terms of her story is, not very much: Agudo’s Carmen follows the broad outlines of the original plot, bar a new, very now, dalliance with another woman. Carmen parties, seduces a Don José figure, abandons him for a flashy character (a nod to the bullfighter Escamillo) and comes to a sticky end at the hands of a lover demented with jealousy.

Where this Carmen gets really interesting is in the originality of its choreographic language. The company’s Spanish artistic director and choreographer, José Agudo, has his roots in flamenco, but during his career he has studied and performed other styles of dance, including contemporary and Indian Kathak under Akram Khan's guidance.

Agudo has skilfully blended all those styles to create his very own fresh, dynamic and engaging language, which serves his story very well. It has many moves from flamenco, of course: hands rotate extravagantly on the wrists, backs bend deeply, arms cut through the air; but the periodic stamping of bare feet on the ground is a clever hybrid of both flamenco zapateado and kathak.

Contemporary dance joins all that into a harmonious whole; and the choreographer gave the Escamillo figure a couple of balletic stunts, which Luke Watson performed with obvious gusto. For its part the duet where Carmen toys with another woman early in the piece borrows extensively from tango, in particular the swinging legs that appear to wrap around the partner.

The company's seven dancers, three men and four women, are remarkable, perfectly synchronised in the ensemble pieces, never flagging throughout 60 minutes of high-energy, intense performance.

As Carmen Nikita Goile looks the part: in a red dress that nods towards traditional flamenco costume but without the flounces, she is powerful and commanding, but despite the choreography’s sinuous movements not very sensual; her long seduction duet with the tall Joshua Scott, well cast as Don José, is all bodies glued together, her long flowing hair creating its own choreography, but lacks sexual chemistry.

Agudo’s Carmen is set to an original score by the British-Austrian drummer and composer Bernhard Schimpelsberger, which flows seamlessly from a soundscape of rhythmic hammering reminiscent of work in a forge to pure flamenco, and then jazzy fusion. Its atmospheric account of different settings – a gypsy camp, a party at the tavern, the deserted street where Carmen meets her end – totally makes up for the absence of sets and props.