#luckytrimmer Does Wales! 
As always, a warm welcome to all of us from the National Dance Company Wales as we pile into their building.
A welcome compounded by a delightful duet of introduction from the Lucky Trimmer co-ordinators & we all settle into our seats to watch & wait, excited & curious.
So, piece by piece here we go:
How Should I Explain
Dark stage, thick music, a bright light character in green & white confronts us & we are off to a great start. Dachauer’s punchy performance to the familiar & comforting Viennese Waltz is athletic, energetic & when she smiles broadly at us, as welcoming as our hosts. I do not know the story she is telling perhaps as well as I should but enough to follow, enjoy & find amusement here & there. The relishing of the power of her body controlled through dance is palpable.
Grandmother
Foscarini is incredible to watch. I don’t notice the music. I don’t notice the audience around me or my friend beside me. She is mesmeric. Hard, blunt physicality spot-lit; flashes of memory in dance. When the lights go out, I hear her patter across the stage & we hold our communal breath waiting for illumination. It is beautiful & crippling.
Moments – Performatives Spazieren
Well. Clever clever stuff, Taguchi. A floor unpicks itself in an empty room. Its wooden planking parades around Berlin to music, making music & cutting its own path as is dances through streets & parks & people. It is very funny but we do not laugh much as the inanimate lives & breathes & becomes a floor once more. I am reminded of the first time I saw a pianola. It feels strangely out of place yet perfectly placed.
El Pie (The Foot)
And more on the theme of morphe & matter, resurrection, the bringing of life.
Her body falls in front of us & Marote lies dead to us. One foot revives quickly & playfully, angrily, sadly, cleverly cajoles & bullies its owner back to life. Macabre, hilarious, kind & tear-jerking, this dance plays with us. I think on horror stories of hands having lives of their own, of puppetry, of people painting with their feet & toes holding brushes as well as any fingers. Of electricity forcing body hearts to beat, of the lust in the living to will the dead to live. And the utter joy when breath is taken & the lights come on. I love it.
Floating Flowers
Tsai & Chen – one flower, two dancers; two dancers, two flowers; two flowers, one dancer… pretty, quirky, surreal & complicated, this homage to beliefs & traditions I can easily believe will send away bad luck & bring happiness – how could something so delightful, not?
monoLOG
Lefeuvre is less stripped than the others, faintly lumberjacky, plaid & chappy, clutching his lump of wood. This doesn’t feel like a dance. It feels like a séance, a spirit creeping out of the log & into his arm & into his senses. It is hard stuff. Difficult to watch. A take-over, a trick, a phantasmagoric illusion. I like this least but am sure I will remember it the longest.
Bernadette
I’ve seen this before, recently obviously. I loved it then & I loved it still. Expectation made it a little quicker, less comical & more tragic. She was longer lying on that table this time I thought, a little sadder. Does that say more of me than Bernadette?
Finn is a confident performer, a cool dancer as much at home with her apple pie as with her cold chicken, a story-teller & a mimic, a giver of life.
4 Stars
 
Event:              Lucky Trimmer Does Wales!
National Dance Company Wales
 
Seen:               7.30pm, 16^th July, 2016
Reviewer:        Helen Joy for 3rd Act Critics
Running:          16^th July, 2016
Cost :                 £10 / ticket
 
Links:               www.luckytrimmer.com
www.ndcwales.co.uk