Review: STORIES - THE TAP DANCE SENSATION, Peacock Theatre
Photo credit: Elliot Aubin
Returning to the Peacock where it was first seen in 2024, Stories offers a danced narrative using a fusion of jazz and tap. From the opening scene in the film set of a newspaper office, we follow our hero Icarus - an actor who is being controlled by his director and is unable to escape the hold that person has on him. That is as much as the programme synopsis tells us, although some sections of the piece suggest other developments and could perhaps be read in different ways; but narrative coherence is not the strongest point here.
RB Dance Company was founded by Romain Rachline Borgeaud, a polymath who is responsible for almost all aspects of the production. His stated aim is to explore “dance at the intersection of tap and urban jazz” and he does so here with the support of a strong team of dancers, many with musical theatre as well as dance experience. This is true of Borgeaud too, and this is a fully staged performance with a versatile set and costumes (Federica Mugnai and Margaux Ponsard).
Stories lasts 1 hour 10 minutes without an interval and sets a pace from the first scene, which is kept up for the duration. As in that scene, many of the set-pieces involve the whole company dancing up a storm (13 are listed in the programme, though without character names). Borgeaud’s particular style of jazz and tap is interesting, with less emphasis than usual on the percussive sound of the taps and little recourse to break in the music so that we can hear the sound made by the dancers. Tap fans will miss the powerful sounds of taps alone without the recorded music (which also seems to include percussive taps itself).
In that first scene, the sight of these skilled performers moving in unison is exhilarating, and with clever use of glowing cigarettes. After that, successive sections are equally impressive, especially when led by Thiméo Garin as Icarus. This young dancer, who has a background in hip-hop, has remarkable stage presence and is a talented dancer, and becomes a great favourite with the audience.
The narrative also involved a female figure called Elle, not mentioned in the synopsis, and it is difficult at times to follow the fairly complicated narrative. It is a little disappointing, too, not to be able to see the dancers’ feet for much of the time due to the wide masking across the front of the stage, presumably for lighting strips. The Peacock has excellent sight lines for dance, but on this occasion, much of the audience could see nothing of the performers from mid-calf downwards.
Sadler’s Wells at the Peacock continues to bring the best of world dance and visual theatre to London, and this blend of tap and jazz dance is a worthy contribution to that aim. Enjoy it as a feast of dancing rather than being too concerned about the narrative, and the company have a great encore too.
**** Four stars
Reviewed by: Chris Abbott
