Dance review: Errol White Dance

Published on Monday 8 June 2009 20:14

ERROL WHITE DANCE *** TRAVERSE THEATRE, EDINBURGH

BY THEIR very nature, dance companies have a high staff turnover. As audience members, you get used to your favourite dancers moving on to pastures new, but I've never really stopped mourning the day Errol White left Scottish Dance Theatre. Both he and Jonathan Goddard (now an award-winning dancer with Rambert) were a formidable force at the Dundee-based company.

In recent years, brief glimpses of White's charismatic style have been afforded us through his involvement with Phoenix Dance and X Factor. Far more satisfying, however, was the news that White had set up his own company, based in Edinburgh. Twenty years of thinking, planning, training and hoping led to the company's debut outing at the Traverse. And while the end result may not have rocked the world, clearly this is not the end – just a promising beginning.

Comprising a solo, duet and trio, Three Works focussed on individuality – why we are the way we are, and how we stay that way in the face of external influences. A piece for three women, An Incomplete View, shifted dynamics on several occasions. Coasting along to the music of Portuguese composer Tiago Cerqueria, it plunged us in new directions with heart-stopping alacrity.

I Came To See You, a duet for White and Davina Givan (another shining star from Scottish Dance Theatre) stopped short of being truly affecting. When the two came together, the emotion was palpable, but they spent most of the duet apart. Grace, on the other hand, was 12 minutes of sheer pleasure. White has a bewitching way of moving his body and this exquisite solo set to the haunting sounds of Canadian group A Silver Mt Zion was a high point not just of the evening, but of the year.