National Dance Company Wales, Pulse Review ★★★★★

National Dance Company Wales's motto, 'Let's change the world by dancing', gives a clear indication of the ambition of this small but very exciting Cardiff-based contemporary dance company, which ams to carve a niche for Wales in the UK dance scene.

So far, it's being doing exactly that; and its new double bill, Pulse, which had a short run at The Place, continues on this fruitful path.

The first piece in the programme, Waltz, comes from the award-winning Spanish choreographer Marcos Morau, whose previous work for NDCWales, Tundra, Culture Whisper enjoyed a lot back in 2019.

Like Tundra, Waltz relies on meticulously drilled ensemble work, much of it following syncopated rhythms, and eye-catching costumes. Whereas Tundra evoked the harshness of the frozen landscapes of northern Russia, Waltz transports us to a world beyond time and the emergence of a tangled new breed of shiny creatures.

When we first see the dancers, they are a heaving amorphous mass, entirely covered by magnetic tape. Slowly, to a sound montage designed by Morau himself that goes on to include snatches from all manner of music from Thom Yorke to Sibelius, as well as atmospheric noises, they disentangle themselves and become discernible as eight individuals.

Covered head to toe in body hugging black with a profusion of shiny dots (costumes by Elizabeth Catherine Chiu), they are not quite human; and for the first section of the work they remain on the ground, creating a many legged beast, part-reptile, part-insect, heads raising only to subsume themselves once again into the collective body.

Bernt Jansà's lighting design creates a mysterious, other-worldly atmosphere .

When they rise, now barefoot and with the faces exposed, they are recognisably human, but still strangers, something beyond our time.Their movements are robotic, increasingly fierce and perfectly syncronised.

After the interval the mood alters completely. Now the atmosphere is street. Say Something by Sarah Golding and Yukiko Masui (SAY), works with the beat boxers MC Zani and Dean Yhnell to create a very physical blend of contemporary dance and varieties of hip hop.

In the first section seven dancers, clad in the loose street attire – baggy pants, oversize tops all vaguely stone-coloured (costume design George Hampton Wale) – throw themselves into an energetic collective dance, and this is the point at which we must once again marvel at the versatility of NDCWales’s dancers.

In the second section beat boxer Dean Yhnell joins them on stage adding voice and breathing to the sound score. This section is more relaxed and consists primarily of challenges between the dancers, leading to some remarkable solo work.

Then the piece appears to lose its way and there’s a lengthy section where nothing much happens, with the dancers just moseying around the stage, with the result that our attention wanders a little.

However, they gather their energies for a strong, humorous finale which restores the impact of the piece.