Emanuel Gat Dance, LoveTrain2020 review ★★★★★

Initially the visuals of LoveTrain2020 dazzle. The curtain rises slowly to reveal a dark Sadler's Wells stage where we’re gradually allowed to perceive a backcloth of black panels with narrow openings, behind which figures can be glimpsed walking purposefully amid plentiful smoke.

One by one, the dancers come forward and stand immobile, creating a tableau. Suddenly the lights go up, they break apart and spread all over the stage to the sound of Tears for Fears Ideas as Opiates.

Their extraordinary costumes are then revealed in all their glory. Designed by Thomas Bradley, they are voluminous, recherché, colourful: gold and marigold, midnight blue, dusty pink, vibrant scarlet in shapes and flounces that reference so many things, from baroque apparel to ancient Greek tunics.

Emanuel Gat Dance, LoveTrain2020. Photo: Julia Gat

Throughout the performance there’s an organic relationship between people and costumes, with the dancers taking items off, sometimes stripping down to just skimpy underwear, or adding even more layers.

For its first half or so this 75-minute show is fresh and enthralling. A dozen dancers respond to a sequence of Tears for Fears hits with what at times may appear chaotic movement but is, in fact, meticulously calibrated. Arms vigorously punctuating the beat, they move in unison to the music, or they cut across the aural rhythm, shaping their own visual cadences.

Aided by inspired reveal/conceal lighting, designed by Emanuel Gat himself, and a smoke-machine often in overdrive, the dancers intermittently form themselves into groups, which freeze in arrangements reminiscent of baroque paintings.

Emanuel Gat Dance, LoveTrain2020. Photo: Julia Gat

Silence between tracks provides moments of suspension, allowing for slow, meditative, sinuous solos.

Gat intended LoveTrain2020 to be an homage to the vibe of the 1980s as portrayed in the music of Tears for Fears with its explosive release of rage. It’s not for nothing that Gat’s work was created during the pandemic with all its attendant restrictions and frustrations.

So, the France-based Israeli choreographer created an initially powerful, often explosive work, which his multinational company grabbed with gusto, if not exactly joy – nor is there any joy in Tears for Fears's terribly serious music, for all its energetic, danceable quality.

It was when I found myself looking at my watch at about the halfway mark that I realised LoveTrain2020 was losing me. At this point the choreography appeared to have lost momentum. Visually stunning, innovative and undoubtedly entertaining as it often is, and despite all the skill and commitment the dancers put into it, this train rolls happily through Mad World, The Way You Are et al, starts slowing down with Everybody Wants to Rule the World and ends up going nowhere to the sound of Sowing the Seeds of Love.